- cross-posted to:
- news@beehaw.org
- world@lemmy.world
- cross-posted to:
- news@beehaw.org
- world@lemmy.world
When Lolita came to Australia in 2022, she was fleeing an older man she’d been forced to marry as a child in Saudi Arabia.
She told confidants she’d escaped a cycle of violence and sexual servitude so extreme it had repeatedly landed her in hospital.
But less than a year after her arrival, she vanished - last seen by a friend who claims he watched as she was taken from her apartment by a group of Saudi men in a black van.
Records show that Lolita, who is in her early 30s and goes by a single name, was put on a flight from Melbourne to Kuala Lumpur in May 2023. From there, her lawyer believes she was returned to Saudi Arabia and detained.
But Lolita’s exact whereabouts and safety - or whether she is even alive - remain unknown.
Can we now agree to call forced marriages a form of human trafficking?