Most summer vacations for teenage girls involve getting a job at the local Dairy Queen or tempting skin cancer at the beach. But in France, hundreds of girls disappear each summer when they are sent abroad and forced into marriages with men they’ve never met. Most of the victims are Muslim and of Asian, African, or Middle Eastern descent, so the government has generally considered it a cultural or religious issue. But since other European countries like England have governmental units that track down women who are forced into marriages in their countries of origin, we’re happy that France is just starting to keep up with the times. The French school system is working to set up an alert system for these girls who never return to school in the fall and last year they published a guide to help officials suss out forced marriages. The government is even making efforts to protect girls who want to annul their marriages. [Reuters] Keep reading »
