In Sri Lanka the legal marriage age is 18, but under a decades-old community law, much younger Muslim girls can get married. As calls grow for this law to be amended, BBC Sinhala’s Saroj Pathirana meets one young girl forced to marry against her will.

When Shafa* was 15, she was forced to get married. “While studying for exams, I fell in love with a boy,” Shafa said, tears running down her cheeks.

“My parents did not like it. They sent me to my uncle’s place. While I was studying there, a regular visitor told my aunt and uncle that he wanted to marry me.”

Shafa, who comes from a Muslim family and lives in a remote village in Sri Lanka, refused. She wanted to marry the boy she loved, after completing her secondary school education.

But despite her objections, her uncle and aunt arranged for her to marry their friend.

Whenever she objected to the marriage, she was beaten. Her uncle and aunt even threatened to kill themselves if she did not listen to them.

“I cut my arms as there was no other option,” said Shafa, pulling up her sleeves to show the scars. “I also took some pills from my uncle’s place.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-39898589

Court orders are being sought to protect Sheffield girls due to be sent abroad and forced to marry men they have never met, where rape, pregnancy and servitude will become a way of life Ancient family traditions are being thrust upon Sheffield girls, who are being sent abroad against their wishes or naively unaware of the hell of forced marriage which awaits them when they arrive.

In a clash of cultures, girls born in Sheffield, educated in Sheffield and leading settled lives in Sheffield, are being taken abroad to marry – often against their will and to ‘husbands’ they have never met before. Some girls know their fate and are pressured into marrying for fear of bringing shame upon their families, but others travel abroad unaware that they may never return, having been promised as a bride since birth or for money. The practice is illegal in Britain, but common in a number of countries, including Pakistan and Bangladesh, and police forces across the country know girls are being forced to marry against their will and are being subjected to rape.
http://www.sheffieldtelegraph.co.uk/news/health/special-report-police-help-save-girls-from-forced-marriage-and-rape-1-8584354

Sara Tasneem was 15 years old when she was married off to a 28-year old stranger. Her parents were divorced, and her deeply conservative father was a member of a Muslim sect in California. When she went to visit him during high school, “He told me I was going to have to get married and the Sheikh was going to pick who I was going to get married to,” she recalls. “I never questioned my dad, ever.”

Thousands of U.S. teens are married before they turn 18 every year. Sometimes the practice coincides with religious traditions, as conservative Jews, Christians and Muslims often encourage early marriage. But even nonreligious adolescents marry before they’re legal adults, sometimes because of a teen pregnancy. Most states require parental consent or the approval of a judge in order for a minor to get married — but in many cases, the parents are driving the match, and a judge will often defer to the wishes of the parents.

Tasneem’s case illustrates how few protections are available to young brides if their parents are the ones encouraging early marriage. She met her husband the same day as their spiritual marriage ceremony in 1996. “I was introduced to him that morning and I was handed over to him physically that night,” she said. “I remember asking, ‘Where am I going to sleep tonight?’ and they wouldn’t answer me. They just handed me over to this guy that I didn’t know.” She suspects that her husband, who was a new convert to the group, was enticed to the sect by the possibility of marrying a virgin.

Tasneem says her father concealed the marriage from her mother by demanding she tell her mom she was going to live with her dad permanently. “They made me call her and forced me to lie to her on the phone. And for me as a 15 year old, that was horrible,” she recalls, adding that her husband and father stood over her as she made the call. “I didn’t feel like I had the power to stand up to all these adults.”

http://motto.time.com/4807611/us-child-marriage-survivor-story/

Aged just 12, Fay Khatri was forced into a marriage against her will.

Five years later, she was forced to marry again – this time to her cousin.

“I was abused by a number people while I was growing up and at one stage I decided that was just the way was going to be for me,” said Fay, was married five times in 11 years, three against her will.

But she refused to accept the way her life was going. Determined to make a success of her life, she ran away from home and met a Middlesbrough man – changing her life forever.

The 46-year-old therapist is now the proud owner of a thriving salon, Tamara’s Beautique on Borough Road, a happy ending to an emotional and often heartbreaking journey.

“I was born in Kenya, but after I got married when I was 12 I was shipped out to live in Saudi Arabia, where my mum also lived,” said Fay.

http://www.gazettelive.co.uk/news/teesside-news/forced-marriage-aged-just-12-13068279

For 15 years, documentary photographer Stephanie Sinclair has focused her camera on what she calls “everyday brutality” — the violence, genital mutilation and forced marriage endured by girls and young women around the world, including in Afghanistan, India and Nigeria.

Now she has won the Anja Niedringhaus Courage in Photojournalism Award, granted by the International Women’s Media Foundation and named in memory of the Pulitzer Prize-winning German war photographer killed in Afghanistan in 2014. We spoke to Sinclair, who was born in Miami and lives in upstate New York, about her award, her photos and videos of the travails of child brides around the world, and about recently becoming a mother herself. The conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

http://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2017/05/13/526942703/video-a-heartbreaking-look-at-a-couple-forced-to-marry-as-young-teens

It’s thought that around 5,000 to 8,000 cases of forced marriages happen in England every year.

Almost half the cases involve 16 to 25-year-old girls and women, but it’s those who are still in education that are at the greatest risk. People with learning difficulties are also incredibly vulnerable.

But despite it being so prevalent in this country, people very rarely discuss it.

One charity is looking to change that, by calling on educational institutions to implement mandatory safeguarding practices.

Our Girl, a national forced marriage prevention and awareness campaign led by the Sharan Project, works with colleges and universities to train staff to notice the signs of forced marriage.

Young people are at the tipping point of being forced to marry, particularly where families will place conditions on their child to go to college or university in exchange for them marrying a person of the family’s choice upon completion or graduation,’ Polly Harrar, founder of the Sharan Project, said.

‘We have seen an increase in requests for support within schools, colleges and universities where no policies or training exists to support young people at risk or affected by forced marriage, and have seen some significant progress being made from the institutes we work with in addressing these issues.’

Read more: http://metro.co.uk/2017/04/28/thousands-of-girls-in-the-uk-are-forced-into-marriages-every-year-heres-what-you-can-do-6603977/#ixzz4fvLqTv1Q