Spain moves to protect girl over forced marriage

It has been reported that a Moroccan teenager whose mother wanted to sell her into marriage has been placed under the protection…

It has been reported that a Moroccan teenager whose mother wanted to sell her into marriage has been placed under the protection of social services in the southern Spanish region of Andalucia.

Luis Lopez, an official in charge of social affairs at the Andalucian regional government said the mother of the 15-year-old girl had planned to sell her to a man living in Morocco for an undisclosed amount.

The Spanish Education and Culture Minister, Mr Pilar del Castillo, described the teenager's plight as "terrible" and said a greater effort was needed to ensure immigrants "share the civic values" of Spaniards.

The report, carried in the newspapers El Mundo, El Paisand Voz de Almeria, came a week after a controversy over a Muslim father's insistence that his daughter wear a headscarf to school in Madrid.

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Regional authorities finally allowed the 13-year-old girl to go to school with her head covered after her father kept her out of school for five months.

With some 280,000 residents legally registered, Moroccans form the largest immigrant community in Spain.

The 15-year-old girl, who had told a friend about her mother's forced wedding plans, eventually alerted the children's tribunal, which in turn called the regional social services.

When authorities questioned her and her mother, they decided the teenager was at risk and removed her from her family. She was placed in a centre for children and made change schools.

AFP