"Muslim girls in Austria fighting forced marriages
Program for women helps them escape from family pressures, unwanted weddings -- and violence
- Eric Geiger, Chronicle Foreign Service
Sunday, December 4, 2005
Vienna -- When 15-year-old Fatima traveled to Turkey last year to attend the wedding of a male cousin she had never met, she was eager to meet the bride and groom.
But after she arrived in the small Turkish village where her parents had lived before immigrating to Austria, the Vienna high school pupil's enthusiasm quickly turned to panic when she learned that she was the bride.
Despite Fatima's frantic resistance -- her father beat her until she consented -- the dark-haired teen went ahead with the marriage planned by the couple's parents.
"Marriage once meant bliss and great happiness, but it turned out to be a horrible ordeal that I will never forget," said Fatima, who asked a reporter not to use her last name for fear of reprisal. "
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