Of course, no English media is reporting this story. It’s not like it’s in Canada or anything. /sarc tag off.

Saved from a forced marriage in Victoriaville: “My family wants to hit me”

(Victoriaville) Police and Youth Protection Branch (DPJ) have rescued a teenage girl from a forced marriage organized by an imam in Victoriaville this summer. When the girl ran away from home, she found refuge with a family of refugees in the area, which provoked a clash in the community. His protectors have confided to La Presse . Story of a rescue.

Posted on 09 September 2019 at 5h00

Share

By Vincent Larouche, La Presse, September 9, 2019:

The teenager broke into the apartment of the Al-Atrash family * without knocking. People were chasing him. She seemed terrified, out of breath. She needed a place to hide. Right now.

“My family wants to hit me, my family wants to hit me,” she repeated. Residents of the place wanted to calm her, offer her a glass of water. They could not understand why she broke into their home. But they could see that she had left in an emergency, without even taking the time to put on her shoes.

Then the front door opened again. Six people broke into the modest housing following the girl. His mother, his brothers, his fiancé in his twenties, and two of his friends. They seemed furious, enraged, aggressive.

The fleeing teenager rushed into a room and locked the door. His mother cried, “I want my daughter! Her fiancé took off and started beating in the door of the room, which he managed to smash.

The hunted girl was holding on, leaning her back against the broken door and pushing with her legs on the bed in front of her to block the entrance. ” I do not want to go outside ! She cried.

Scrambling and melee

The six members of the Al-Atrash family interposed in front of the intruders. Father Al-Atrash shouted to the fiance, “But what are you doing? ”

A stampede broke out. Screaming, hand-to-hand, hair pulled, falls: the fiance was wounded in one hand. Pregnant, mother Al-Atrash was pushed violently, causing her stomach pains that led her to the hospital.

I was really scared, it was not easy. Everyone was crying.

Amira, the eldest daughter of the Al-Atrash family

( The press has changed the names of family members because the Youth Protection Act prohibits the publication of any information that would identify the victim in this case or his parents.)

Amira knew the teenager on the run. They were studying in different secondary schools, but since their families had fled the same country in the Middle East to settle as refugees in the same neighborhood in Victoriaville, they had become friends. Amira did not know all the details of her friend’s private life. But she knew they wanted to force her to marry a man in her twenties. And that the girl did not want to know anything about him.

The teenage girl’s forced marriage story was revealed Friday morning by host Paul Arcand on 98.5 FM. The next day, the six members of the Al-Atrash family agreed to give an interview to La Presse in their small salon. For the first time, they told the tense day of April and the rifts it has provoked in the Muslim community of Center-du-Québec.

Five months later, as they recollect, the door frame of their bedroom still shows signs of violence.

Police escort

In the chaotic environment that April afternoon, Father Al-Atrash had managed to reach the teenager’s father on the phone. “I told him he’s talking to his world, that I do not want problems,” he recalls. Finally, one of the fleeing teenage brothers agreed that it was not acceptable to invade people’s homes. He took out his band. The dispute has moved out. The teenager still refused to go out, and the Al-Atrash screened to protect her.

The patrol officers of the Victoriaville SQ (SQ) station, who were on the scene, had a hard time understanding what was happening.

“The police were called for an altercation involving about twenty people,” says sergeant Ingrid Asselin, spokesman for the SQ.

Other members of the community were involved in the dispute. The situation was confused. “The police spoke French, but everyone here spoke Arabic,” recalls Father Al-Atrash, who has been taking French courses since arriving in Quebec in 2016, but who is still struggling to make himself understood.

After having sorted out the story, the police made a report to the director of youth protection.

Sgt Ingrid Asselin, spokesperson for the SQ

The same day, the teenage girl was taken out of her home to be placed in a foster home, because the interveners felt that her development and her safety were threatened. Police escorted DYP workers to their destination to ensure they were not being followed.

The teenager herself asked to be placed in a foster home until she came of age, so much did she fear her family. The case moved to the youth court, where the parents and the future husband pleaded for her to stay with them.