Foced Marriage is the most extraordinary story of kidnap, survival, escape and hiding that 60 Minutes Australia aired in 2015.
13-year-old Rania Farrah was supposed to be on the trip of a lifetime, a tour of historic Egypt with her older brother. Instead, the Sydney teenager would be taken captive by her father’s family in Syria, and held against her will. She endured horrific beatings and the most horrific breaches of human rights. She would be married off to her cousin, a man she’d never met, in a land she didn’t know. Young Rania was a prisoner in the secretive and sinister world of forced marriage.
But refusing to be defeated, she secretly plotted and pulled off a daring escape back to Australia on the day she turned 18. Now, she’s forced to live in hiding, fearful her father will track her down and kill her. On 60 Minutes, Rania very bravely speaks to Liz Hayes in the hope of lifting the veil on a hidden crime that affects hundreds of Australian women.
