Throughout the ceremony, she wept and shook with shock and fear

Well here’s a gut-wrenching story. A father forces his daughter into an unwanted marriage, then rescues her from that marriage when he realizes how horrible it is.

The parents are from Turkey. The father had lived in London for 25 years but still thought that his daughter’s having a boyfriend at 17 meant she was falling victim to “the ways of the western world” and had to be married off to a stranger in Turkey, no matter how much she didn’t want to.

He and my mother tricked me into thinking we were going to Turkey just for a holiday, something we had done every summer throughout my life. On the final day, Dad took me to one side and firmly explained that I wasn’t going back with them. “You’re staying here with your uncle and he’s going to find you someone to marry. You want to get married, then it will be to someone we choose rather than a stranger you bring home.” [Read more…]

Finders keepers

Dear old tradition.

Bride kidnapping, or “bridenapping”, happens in at least 17 countries around the world, from China to Mexico to Russia to southern Africa. In each of these lands, there are communities where it is routine for young women and girls to be plucked from their families, raped and forced into marriage. Few continents are not blighted by the practice, yet there is little awareness of these crimes, and few police investigations. [Read more…]