Authorities in Sichuan looking into forced marriage case

Local authorities in Sichuan province said on Tuesday that they are looking into a case in which a 16-year-old girl was rescued by the police last week after she claimed that she had escaped a forced marriage but was forcibly taken back to the province by her "fiance".

On Feb 14, the teen received the police's help not in her hometown of Puge county, Sichuan, but Tiandong county in the neighboring Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region — a place she passed through during her coerced trip with her "fiance", according to a report by Guangxi Radio and Television.

When the teen and her "fiance" dropped by a service area along a highway in Tiandong county, the girl got a chance to call the police by claiming to need to go to the restroom. Soon after, local police arrived and the girl said she had been sold by her parents, a claim that has since spread online through a recording made on the police officer's body-cam.

The girl told the police that her parents had previously betrothed her to a man without her consent and received the man's bride price of 260,000 yuan ($37,800), according to the GRT report. Bride price is a controversial Chinese tradition that refers to the money the groom or his family gives to the parents of the bride before marriage.

Unable to protest, she fled her family in Sichuan and headed to Guangdong province. However, last week, her "fiance" found the teen working at a factory in Guangdong and forcibly took her back to Sichuan.

The "fiance" faces possible charges of violent interference with the freedom of marriage, according to Chinese criminal law.

On Tuesday, a staff member at Women's Federation — a Chinese women's rights agency — in Tiandong county told China Daily that the girl had been in a juvenile-protection center for three days until Friday when her family arrived in Tiandong to pick her up.

The girl has since arrived home in Puge, Sichuan, and civil affairs and Women's Federation staff are overseeing the case.

According to a report by Beijing News, an official at the village where the teen lives said the girl's safety would be guaranteed and specialized village workers had been tasked with protecting her.

The village official revealed they were attempting to persuade the girl's family to return the bride price, adding that both sides of the forced marriage didn't get marriage licenses.

According to the Civil Code, China's fundamental law to regulate civil behavior, the nation prohibits marriage upon arbitrary decision by any third party, mercenary marriage and any other acts of interference in the freedom of marriage.

Marriage is based upon the complete willingness of both man and woman, the Code says. Coercion by either party against the other party is prohibited, and interference by any organization or individual is also prohibited.