France: Kidnapping Was Part of Ritual

France - A teenage girl, whose kidnapping on Sunday from a park in Privas, in southeast France, riveted the country, was found unharmed on Friday, apparently taken by her fiancé’s family as part of a Chechen premarriage ritual, the police said. The girl, who was not named and who was thought to be 16 or 17, was found by the police in the southwestern Haute-Garonne region with the family of her fiancé, said a spokeswoman for the Privas police. The family said they were simply following an old North Caucasus tradition, like others in the Chechen diaspora. The kidnapping originates as a response by a man when a young woman’s family refuses a marriage. After the abduction and a night spent away from home, the young women is considered “soiled,” and the family would then consent to the union. Religious leaders among the Chechens, who are mostly Muslim, are trying to put an end to the tradition. Full Story>>
France: Kidnapping Was Part of Ritual http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/23/world/europe/23briefs-France.html?_r=1