To wonder how this is legal and what can be done to prevent it

[Fawnly]

Over the last few weeks I’ve heard 3 separate stories of young British girls, moving to the Middle East, getting married, changing religion and having children with men who are older.
One was on here and it seems it ended in abuse.

One of the others has really disturbed me, this girl started a relationship with a doctor from Qatar who was late 20s when she was 17!! As soon as she turned 18 she started getting the documents needed to move. 6 weeks after turning 18 she has moved to Qatar, married just weeks after that (had to change religion first). Then almost immediately conceived a child. Her parents (who are my friends), haven’t been able to visit as she refuses to let them. She now has 2 children, totally distant from her family etc.

Another was similar but the UAE.

AIBU to wonder how this is legal? Why are these countries letting 30 year old men marry teenagers who they have just moved 4000 miles from home!

I have teenagers and I’m beside myself at the thought of this happening to them!

How and why does this happen? How can it be prevented?

Half Arab here - to clarify, my parents are normal people who met at university, I can’t personally relate to any of this.

It’s not actually particularly normal or socially acceptable for men in the Gulf to marry barely-adult foreigners they’ve met online. It’s weird, and most families won’t love it.

That said, you always get weirdos and if both people are adults and immigration allows it, there’s not much you can do to stop these scenarios. It’s not that uncommon to encounter white middle class women who have converted to Islam and want to go full trad in a very intense way, whether that’s in the UK or abroad. There seems to be a few different things driving it, depending on the personalities involved, and it often doesn’t last in my experience. Good luck to your friends and maintaining a relationship with their daughter.

Or was groomed online. How did she meet this 30 year old doctor in a foreign country if she was at boarding school here? There is something not right about this. Her poor parents, and her too! She will wake up soon and find herself in a kind of prison. Let's hope she still has her passport.

It’s odd, her parents claim they are very close to his family and she has other friends who are in similar situations.

2 times the country in question is Qatar once UAE.
With everything else I’ve heard about Qatar I can’t figure out why anyone would want to go!

To be honest the parents in question need to take a long hard look at their parenting and their relationship with their daughter that she was so easily influenced or that this was such an attractive proposition.

Despite your claims this is most certainly not a commonly occurring situation, most 18yr old british girls don't do this so that this girl has chosen to is telling.

Perhaps boarding school wasn't the best parenting choice

Of all the things to worry about for your teenagers, this shouldn't be making your top 100 honestly.

I don't know what you think the British government should or could do about it or why you mention only British teenagers marrying older men from Middle Eastern countries. What about the very young Thai, Filipino and other nationality brides who end up married to British men a decade or more older than them as soon as they arrive in this country? Does your concern only extend in one direction?

I guess it’s a mix. If they were so in love couldn’t they stay in the UK? Why was he so desperate to get her out of the UK and have kids.

Possibly because he has a home, family, job, friends etc in his home country? You may as well be saying how dreadful it is for a teenager to be marrying an older Australian & moving to Australia with him - unless there's a racial element to your issues?

He had been living in the uk since he was a student, so why the sudden rush to move as soon as he finds a young girl?

An 18 year old in the UK could move away, marry a 30 year old and go NC with their family. It would be perfectly legal and nothing would happen to the man or woman. Grandparent rights do not exist so she could easily ban the parents from having contact.

It’s very weird that there’s other girls at the school (?) who made the same decision.

her parents claim they are very close to his family If so, isn’t the answer to ask his father for permission for a face to face meeting with daughter, son in law and their children in Qatar ? (I assume that’s how it works)

Oh, I missed that they met in this country.

If he lived abroad and his family are cool with the marriage and her family, sounds like any estrangement is being driven by whatever issues she has going on with her parents rather than him or his family tbh.

Scary. But I would say that this is a parenting failure, potentially caused by the lack of contact due to being at boarding school. I don’t mean that in a bitchy way, just a practical way :(

i have a relative working at this kind of boarding school. Kids just fall through the cracks.

Maybe she fancies the life of being a passenger princess as opposed to being stuck on the tube at 6:30 pm on a wet Wednesday evening

To be fair and my cousin did that with an American. They had to get married fairly quickly otherwise she couldn’t stay with him.
As luck would have it, they’ve been married 20 years, with 2 lovely children. Could’ve gone the other way.

I think this is a worry but at the age of 18 people are free to make their own decisions. I don't know what can be done other than to point out the potential issues but 18 year olds think they know it all.

Unfortunately there's nothing that can be done because an 18 year old is an adult and can make their own decisions.
Any 18 year old can move to any country they like (as long as they meet the visa requirements), they can convert to any religion they like and they can marry anyone they like.

However, in cases like this, there's usually some sort of reason why the teenager was vulnerable to this kind of thing. Just because the teenager in question comes from a wealthy family and is at boarding school doesn't mean they aren't vulnerable. Perhaps there were issues with her family and she wanted to escape, or she saw no future for herself in Britain, or she was inexperienced with relationships - no boys her own age had paid her any attention before, or she was searching for something, like some kind of spirituality or inner peace and felt that converting to his religion and marrying him could bring her that.

These men can sense that vulnerability and act on it. They aren't going to waste time on other girls who can't be manipulated like that. I do believe it's manipulative and deliberate, but as I said above, legally nothing can be done.

The only thing parents can do is to create an atmosphere/relationship with their children where they can talk openly with each other, without criticizing each other, where they trust each other and listen to each other. Easier said than done with teenagers of course.

Do you also object to foreign brides type websites? Some of those girls are barely 18.

I think I may be the poster you were referring to on here. If not my DDs situation was very similar.

She actually met this man (who was in his 30s) through a sport she played competitively and he also played. She gave birth in the UK to her child at 19 then moved to Qatar.

We discouraged her gently but were cautious that she was in love and would likely just push us away.

DD actually loves the Middle East, she says she missed Qatar and Doha a lot but wouldn't go back as he was abusive and she is scared he would try to keep their child, however DD has said she would happily move to the UAE.

Honestly, I don't think there is much that can be done. He spoiled DD both materially but also in love at first. She had also already started researching Islam and was looking to revert before she even met him, now she's less sure on religion.

I think the men doing this are predators but that's not unique to Middle Eastern men, plenty of British and European men do the same both to British and foreign girls.

Once they are adults you have to trust them to make the right choices and sometimes they won't. You just have to be there if it falls apart and make sure the relationship doesn't get damaged in the meantime.

Op Said they met in the UK. Does not mean she wasn’t groomed I do agree.

When it goes to rats she will find she can leave , but the dc will stay behind

. But just as we see older British women falling for impossibly young foreign men, who then spend all their money/ get a visa/ whatever , the law lets us make total twists of ourselves, and at what point do we think it should step in?

This!

She could have chosen to do exactly the same thing - run away with an older man and cut her parents off - in the UK. It’s not uncommon. Whilst it must be incredibly distressing for the family, it’s not really something you can legislate against.

I think what you describe is grooming and so very worrying. However, it also happens more often than I think most of us would like to acknowledge. And it's not an issue specific to British teenage girls and wealth men from Gulf States.

I can think of an example where I know the teen (now young woman). She was from a wealthy family. She wanted for nothing and was quite spoiled/indulged. She was lovely but naive and very used to her standard of living. There were also issues within her family, not particularly unusual or serious ones from the outside, but perhaps enough to increase her vulnerability. An older, very wealthy man "swept her off her feet" (how some around her saw it initially). He effectively love-bombed her and showed her that, with him, she'd never have to worry about losing her lifestyle, in fact she'd move up a level (or more!) in terms of wealth. She married him and had two children quickly and is now cut off from her family and friends with a man who is clearly controlling, at best. She is completely dependent on him financially as she has no qualifications past school, no real employment history, etc.) And even if her family supported her & her children financially, she'd risk a costly legal battle over the children if she left him too. Maybe she will leave one day but as she has no contact with her family now, it wouldn't seem easy to her. But maybe she's happy. He wanted a young, malleable wife. She was dazzled by his success and lifestyle. Maybe it works for them both still. I hope so for her sake.

I'd imagine similar reasoning/explanations would account for your friends' daughter's decisions. Probably not emotionally as close to her parents as they'd like to think, used to a materially comfortable life and perhaps saw/sees financial wealth as important, impressive, or a minimum for her life. A wealthy older man love bombed her, making it seem they were almost like Romeo & Juliet, and off she went with him. Where he is from and religion aren't so relevant in terms of 'why' or 'how', other than he could sell her a picture of a great lifestyle in Qatar). But obviously it's much trickier for her to leave him and return home if she should want to, particularly as a mother.

Education for our kids is the key. And recognising that wealth, class, and expensive schools aren't protection from grooming, they simply provide different types/avenues of vulnerability to exploitation.

Yep exactly. She's probably married a rich man and is living a fairly luxurious life. 18 seems way too young to settle down but it's not seen as too young in many countries. It also wasn't seen as unusual here a few decades ago. My parents were married at 18 and are still going strong nearly 60 years later.
I don't think this is happening that frequently and it's not something I find too concerning.

I bet he's not a doctor at all...

I think there are some girls who would very much like to marry and have kids young, being mothers is really what they want to do, and the constant message that they must takes years to become educated and have a career before they can even think about that seems really pretty shit.

It's one thing that can make an older man with a career already established seem really attractive.