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Escaping Forced Marriages

New Project Helps Endangered Young Women

By Andrea Brandt

Politicians in Berlin and Düsseldorf are taking measures to try to prevent forced marriages among Germany's immigrant community. A new program gives advice to young women via the Internet and by phone -- and hides them from their parents if necessary.

Not even her counsellors had any inkling of just how imminent the danger was. The invitations had long been mailed and the first gifts had already arrived, the crying young woman suddenly told them over the telephone. There were only two days left.

Two days until the 18-year-old was to be married to a man she did not love, or even know. A man selected for her by her Tamil parents, against her will.

Things turned out differently in the end thanks to a new advisory program based in German state of North Rhine-Westphalia designed to prevent forced marriages. For three weeks, experts at the Bielefeld center for young women had anonymously counselled the young woman -- first by means of an online service set up in the summer, then by phone. They had put her in contact with a lawyer and the youth welfare office, had listened to, consoled and encouraged her. And then they swiftly intervened when the girl finally divulged the imminent marriage date.

"Many only reveal the truth about their situation at the very last moment, for reasons of conscience," says 41-year-old psychologist Birgit Hoffmann-Reuter, the director of the Bielefeld project. The experts have counselled 43 young women as well as three young men to date. Their parents come from Turkey, Morocco, Sri Lanka or Iran.

It is estimated that every year thousands of young women living in Germany are forced into marriage. In order to thwart their parents' plans, North Rhine-Westphalia's Integration Minister Armin Laschet of the Christian Democrat Party (CDU) has been financing the Bielefeld-based online counselling project for the past three months. Germany's Minister for Family Affairs Ursula von der Leyen (also of the CDU) has been funding a similar Internet hotline administered by Berlin-based relief organization Papatya since June.

Laschet also wants to raise awareness of the issue in schools by means of a 10-point action plan against forced marriages to be passed by the state cabinet this month. The plan includes making forced marriages an item on the school curriculum as part of Islam Studies. The goal is to approach young women at school who may be at risk as early as possible: All they have to do is send an e-mail to the Web site www.zwangsheirat-nrw.de. They then receive a personal reply from Bielefeld -- in Turkish, Kurdish, Albanian, Arab or English, as they wish.

One E-mail Is Enough

The 18-year-old woman from North Rhine-Westphalia explained during her first phone counselling sessions that she felt "torn." She said that she did not want to go through with the marriage under any circumstances, but that she did not have the heart to embarrass her parents either. It is when the marriage date has been set and the guests need to be uninvited again that the injury to the family's honor becomes enormous and the danger faced by the daughter all the greater, explains psychologist Hoffmann-Reuter.

Forty-eight people fell victim to so-called "honor killings" in Germany between 1996 and 2005, according to the country's Federal Office of Criminal Investigation. Most were women with immigrant backgrounds. An additional 22 victims survived attacks on their life. Often, the issue was that the young women had gotten involved with the wrong men, from the point of view of the parents.

But improved counselling will only have an effect when there are enough shelters for young women who need to leave their parents for safety reasons to go to. The young woman from North Rhine-Westphalia found refuge in the home of a female friend two days before the marriage date. The same day, a teacher accompanied her to an anonymous shelter where a place had already been organized by the Bielefield counsellors. The shelter is located in another city -- far away from the young woman's family.

It was a blessing in disguise. Two people working at the shelter had experience helping young women threatened with forced marriage to build a new life. It could be a life under a new name, with a disclosure ban imposed on health care providers, telephone companies and the residence registration office. The counsellors are there to help with all necessary steps.

Left to themselves, most of the young women would probably be unable to cope with the situation. Nevertheless, there are only nine emergency shelters in all of Germany that offer immediate refuge to these endangered young women without first demanding that the responsible youth welfare office cover the costs. These shelters are largely financed by the Berlin senate and are all located near Papatya in Berlin. But, as people working there say, the shelters are "usually fully occupied." Some youth welfare offices send the young women to local accommodations because it makes the accounting process easier -- a risky choice.

For example, this past summer a 17-year-old from the Ruhr region was searching for a shelter via the Bielefeld online counselling service four weeks before her marriage date. Approached by the counsellors, the youth welfare office sent her to a residential accommodation located just 500 meters (1,640 feet) from her parents' house.

The young woman complained to her counsellors that vitriolic relatives were constantly harassing her on her way to school. It took more than a month for her youth office to arrange for alternative accommodation at an anonymous location far from her home. "In such a situation, every day is one too many," says Hoffmann-Reuter. "The young woman's life was at risk."