Femmes for Freedom, a Dutch organization advocating against forced marriage, recently criticized the actions of the Dutch police as they allegedly assisted an underage couple wed in the Netherlands. The police escorted the bride from her school to the wedding location. The Muslim couple married so that the bride would not have to marry her cousin in a traditionally arranged marriage in her native country of Pakistan.
Shirin Musa, spokesperson for Femmes for Freedom, expressed the organization’s concern that the underage bride could not properly consent to the marriage, stating “At such a young age there is as much of a possibility that she will be trapped in this marriage as she would be in an arranged one.”