Diplomats save teenager from forced marriage (AFP)

DHAKA (AFP) - A British teenager has been rescued from a forced marriage to her Bangladeshi cousin after begging diplomats to help her, local police said Thursday. The 19-year-old woman travelled from Britain with her mother to Sylhet, in northeastern Bangladesh, where she was to marry the son of her mother's brother, local police chief Mohidur Rahman Khan told AFP. Hours before the wedding was to take place, Nasrin Begum telephoned the British consular office in Sylhet and begged staff to intervene because she did not want to marry the man, Khan said. "The embassy officials came to the village with police and rescued the girl from a marriage that she did not want," he said. Local government chief Ataur Rahman said Nasrin, who was born in the UK, was later handed back to her mother, Asma Begum, after assurances that she would... [read full story]