Girls as young as 12 have 'disappeared', known to have got married

Girls as young as 12 have “disappeared” from their classroom after being married to older men, according to educators who have reached out to the Women’s Rights Foundation.
Its founder, Lara Dimitrijevic said a number of educators had reached out to inform the foundation that girls, “even as young as 12 are disappearing from their classrooms and then turning up weeks later saying that they are married to much older men or not ever showing up at all”.
Commissioner for Children Antoinette Vassallo said concerns about child marriage had been raised with her office “by professionals”.

The numbers are not known but the voices of Dimitrijevic and Vassallo continue to confirm that child marriage is an undocumented reality in Malta.
Earlier this week, several people who work in the social care and education sector said they knew of cases of teenagers not turning up at school and their friends telling the teacher that they were on their honeymoon.
The former president of Malta, Marie-Louise Coleiro Preca, recently spoke about the need to blow the cover of what she called a hidden reality.
And a Maltese author with Palestinian-Jordanian roots, Walid Nabhan, wrote on Facebook: “In my...