Wednesday, February 23, 2011

A teenager was beaten up in an arranged marriage after her father tried to sell her for £10,000

The 15-year-old girl was tricked into flying to Pakistan then forced to marry a 31-year-old man so he could get a British passport. She feared she would die after being hit, scarred with broken glass and locked up for refusing to get married. The beatings started when the young girl refused to get married. She was then locked up without food or water. Fortunately she summoned her strength and escaped to the British High Commission in Pakistan. She then returned home and was reunited with her worried mother. The girl's ordeal is one of many suffered by an estimated 1,735 potential forced marriages involving British citizens in 2010. It is believed that a third of the girls in arranged marriages are under 18. The youngest was just 13. Campaigners against forced marriages have now called for more awareness of the problem which is largely confined to South Asian communities.

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