Child bride detection: Schools plan to spread word on prevention

EXCLUSIVE: School students are being taught to detect and help “child bride’’ classmates escape from their families as the federal government cracks down on forced marriages.

A teenager who was once a child bride resides at a women’s shelter and safe house in Afghanistan. Picture: Getty

SCHOOL students are being taught to detect and help “child bride’’ classmates escape from their families as the federal government cracks down on forced marriages.

The government has funded a “forced marriage curriculum’’, following a surge in the number of girls as young as nine made to marry older men.

The curriculum, approved for NSW high schools, tells students what to do if they’re taken to an airport against their will.

A still from UNICEF'S video on child marriage. Picture: Claire Graham Photography

It includes a “safety plan’’ that shows students how to communicate behind their parents’ backs, where to get help to leave home, and what to do if they are followed.

Students are tested on their knowledge of forced marriage, and given assignments to create logos, slogans and marketing campaigns.

Teachers have been told it is “critical the culture of the students be respected at all times’’.

“Staff need to ensure that no cultural, religious or ethnic group is singled out in any examples of the practice of forced marriage, and that any unfolding class discussions are free from judgments or stereotypes,’’ the curriculum states.

The government helped 18 girls escape forced marriages last financial year — three times more than in 2015.

A seven-year-old Sydney girl was placed on the airport watchlist this year after her mother told the Federal Circuit Court the girl’s father was plotting an arranged marriage with her cousin overseas.

And a 15-year-old Sydney girl used government aid to divorce her parents so she could escape an arranged marriage in Pakistan last year.

Parents who force children to marry can be jailed for up to 25 years.

The curriculum plan includes a list of possible warning signs, such as feeling scared or nervous about an upcoming family holiday overseas, or never being allowed out without a family chaperone.

If a student seeks help, teachers are warned “do not allow any family members to be present at meetings’’.

Eighty-nine cases involving girls as young as nine from Indonesian, Middle Eastern, Turkish and Pakistani families have been reported to the state government child protection helpline in the past three years — including four in the past two months.

“Forced marriage involving children is an abhorrent practice incompatible with Australian law,’’ a Department of Family and Community Services spokesman said yesterday.

The 14 hour-long lessons on forced marriage are designed to be taught to students who are in Years 9, 10 and 11.