Schools to look out for girls forced into marriage

24 September 2008

THE HAGUE — Dutch Integration Minister Ella Vogelaar has announced the creation of an emergency telephone line enabling schools to raise the alarm if immigrant-community girls do not return from holiday.

Schools have found that such girls are sometimes left behind in their countries of origin to be forced into arranged marriages.

The minister says this mostly happens in Turkish, Moroccan and Pakistani families.

She has undertaken studies to find out whether it is possible to make such cases punishable by law. The move follows pressure from the Labour Party.

[Radio Netherlands / Expatica]

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