Australian girls forced into Middle East marriages
REUTERS
SYDNEY, AUG 2: ĘTough new laws carrying up to 25-year jail terms for trafficking in children come into force in Australia on Wednesday, as local media reported young girls were being flown to the Middle East and forced into arranged marriages.
Justice Minister Chris Ellison said forcing young girls to go overseas and into an unwanted marriage was tantamount to loveual trafficking and would be an offence under the new laws.
"We will not accept in Australia any activity which involves sending children, particularly young girls, overseas to be forced into a marriage," Ellison told reporters on Tuesday.
"As from tomorrow, as a result of laws pbutted in the Senate in June this year, it is an offence to traffic a young person, a juvenile, overseas for loveual servitude or indeed marriage."
The Australian newspaper said on Tuesday that girls as young as 14 have been flown overseas for arranged marriages.
It said Australian's embbutty in Beirut had been approached by 12 young women in the past two years, seven of them children under 18, seeking help to return to Australia to escape arranged marriages.
One 14-year-old girl said she was promised a holiday in Lebanon by her father but was forced to marry a man who effectively imprisoned her in his home, the newspaper said.
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