Thea (12) invites you to her wedding

In Europe we have no idea how many young girls all over the world are forced into marriage. We don’t know what these girls go through. But what if the problem was closer to home? What if a girl from, say, Norway has to marry at the age of 12? Thea started a wedding-blog. “Hey! My name is Thea and I’m 12 years old. I am getting married in one month!” That is a wake-up-call, right?

The blog describes the girls feelings about marrying 37-year-old Geir. Thea obviously feels she is way too young to get married and she is sad, because she’s not allowed to have fun with her friends anymore. Her parents are telling her to stop acting like a child, because she has to take care of her own family soon. She is terrified of having sex with her husband. When reading the blog, you get mad. This is not right, it’s not fair. The subject was trending on social media as thousands of people expressed their disgust. Some of them even contacted the police or child services to try and stop the upcoming wedding.

But there’s no wedding. Thea’s story appears to be a well-planned, disruptive campaign by Plan Norge. Thea’s marriage might not be real, but arranged child marriages are. By placing the problem closer to home, it should help create awareness in more developed countries. A strategy that is used more often, like in this video about child labor made by UNICEF and in this video about child prostitution by Terre des Hommes. But Thea’s story explains more than one commercial could do. People can help girls like Thea by signing the petition or sponsoring a girl. But they can also show their support by donating a Facebook-post or a tweet that will be published on the day of the wedding, next saturday. For more information, visit the website: http://stoppbryllupet.blogg.no/