{"id":336,"date":"2013-10-21T10:18:17","date_gmt":"2013-10-21T10:18:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.haloproject.org.uk\/blog\/?p=336"},"modified":"2021-12-01T14:16:49","modified_gmt":"2021-12-01T14:16:49","slug":"putting-an-end-to-forced-marriage-in-australia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.haloproject.org.uk\/blog\/putting-an-end-to-forced-marriage-in-australia\/","title":{"rendered":"Putting an end to forced marriage in Australia"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>According to Human Rights Watch,\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.hrw.org\/news\/2013\/06\/14\/q-child-marriage-and-violations-girls-rights\">14 million girls<\/a>\u00a0are married, worldwide, each year \u2013 with some as young as eight or nine. While early and forced marriage appears most prevalent in countries of Africa, Asia and the Middle East, several recent cases have shown Australia is not immune to the practise.<\/p>\n<p>If the global trend continues, Human Rights Watch\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.hrw.org\/news\/2013\/06\/14\/q-child-marriage-and-violations-girls-rights\">estimates<\/a>\u00a0that 142 million children will be married by 2020.<\/p>\n<h2>Snapshot of Australia<\/h2>\n<p>There is no Australian research on the prevalence of forced marriage but the issue was brought to the fore following several recent high-profile family court cases.\u00a0A 2010 case involving a 13 year-old Victorian girl began when her school alerted the state\u2019s child protection service that she was not attending school. The school suggested the girl\u2019s absence may be due to her parents preparing her for marriage to a fiance they had chosen for her \u2013 a 17 year-old living overseas.<\/p>\n<p>Consequently, the Department of Human Services initiated proceedings in the Family Court that eventually resulted in the court ordering the girl not be removed from Australia before she turned 18. The court also\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.familycourt.gov.au\/wps\/wcm\/resources\/file\/ebac534c405d5c6\/Family%20Court%20Bulletin_December2010_rtf.htm\">ordered<\/a>\u00a0that her passport be surrendered, that her parents be restrained from applying for another passport on her behalf and that her name be placed on the Australian Federal Police watchlist until her 18th birthday.\u00a0The next year, another\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/guides.sl.nsw.gov.au\/content.php?pid=316240&amp;sid=2587941\">prominent case<\/a>\u00a0came before the family court. The girl (known as Ms Kreet) had just finished year 12 and had a boyfriend (known as \u201cMr U\u201d) who lived in Australia. Ms Kreet\u2019s parents told her she was to travel to their home country to marry Mr U there. But they deceived her and had another man in mind.<\/p>\n<p>Read More:\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/theconversation.com\/putting-an-end-to-forced-marriage-in-australia-17827\">http:\/\/theconversation.com\/putting-an-end-to-forced-marriage-in-australia-17827<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>According to Human Rights Watch,\u00a014 million girls\u00a0are married, worldwide, each year \u2013 with some as young as eight or nine. While early and forced marriage appears most prevalent in countries of Africa, Asia and the Middle East, several recent cases have shown Australia is not immune to the practise. If the global trend continues, Human [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[7,53,38,3,8],"class_list":["post-336","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general","tag-forced-marriage","tag-forced-marriage-unit","tag-foreign-office","tag-haloproject","tag-honour"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.haloproject.org.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/336","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.haloproject.org.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.haloproject.org.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.haloproject.org.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.haloproject.org.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=336"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.haloproject.org.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/336\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1776,"href":"https:\/\/www.haloproject.org.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/336\/revisions\/1776"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.haloproject.org.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=336"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.haloproject.org.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=336"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.haloproject.org.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=336"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}