A 16-YEAR-OLD girl has been placed on a nationwide airport watch list to stop her being sent to Lebanon against her will for an arranged marriage.

In what a magistrate has called an ''act of great bravery'', the girl sought a court order to stop her parents taking her out of Australia to marry a man she has met only once.

The girl, who cannot be named, approached the Legal Aid Commission in Sydney after her parents organised the wedding despite her saying she did not want to marry the man.

In the Federal Magistrates Court yesterday, magistrate Joe Harman granted an ex parte application and placed the girl on the PACE Alert system at all points of departure from Australia to prevent her parents spiriting her out of the country.

Mr Harman praised the girl's bravery in using the legal system to challenge her parents' authority. The girl, given the pseudonym Ms Madley by the court, was fearful of her mother's reaction once she found out about her application, he said.