A COURT has placed a 16-year-old girl on the airport watch list to prevent an arranged marriage taking place in Lebanon.

The girl, who cannot be named for legal reasons, applied to the Federal Magistrates Court for an order to restrain her parents from taking her out of Australia to marry a man she had met only once.

The girl, given the pseudonym Ms Madley by the court, approached the Legal Aid Commission after her parents organised the wedding despite her telling them that she did not want to go to Lebanon and did not want to marry the man.

In a judgment delivered at Parramatta in April, but published this week, the federal magistrate Joe Harman granted the ex parte application and placed Ms Madley on the PACE Alert system at all points of arrival and departure to prevent her parents spiriting her out of the country before her passport was surrendered or cancelled.

Mr Harman praised the girl's ''act of great bravery'' in using the legal system to challenge her parents' authority.