Gema Peñalosa Madrid

Madrid

Updated Sunday, March 24, 2024-02:14

  • Events They locate a pregnant and forcibly married 13-year-old girl in Ciudad Real and arrest her husband and parents

  • Events The Civil Guard prevents a forced marriage of a 12-year-old minor who had been 'sold' for 3,000 euros

When the Civil Guard rescued her from a forced marriage, the 13-year-old girl was pregnant again. Months before, the

Juvenile Prosecutor's Office

had started up after receiving a call from a hospital alerting of the girl's miscarriage. Since then, she remained on his radar. The Armed Institute began an investigation and discovered that the girl had been forced to marry in

Moral de Calatrava (Ciudad Real)

, where she has resided since 2023 after being sold to get married. As

EL MUNDO

has learned

, her husband is 19 years old and chose her, along with her family, through Facebook a little over a year ago. She did not live in the town then, but in

Bulgaria

with her family, sources from the police investigation tell this newspaper.

The girl is 12 weeks pregnant and the agents have already arrested her husband, her parents (in their country) and his parents for orchestrating a marriage that investigators from the Juvenile Prosecutor's Office are already analyzing closely. All of them are of Bulgarian nationality, as revealed by the same sources.

The ordeal that the girl had to go through started through social networks. Her 19-year-old husband saw her and decided to contact her. She did it through his parents, who soon contacted the minor's family informing them of her intentions. The man told them that he wanted to marry her and her parents agreed to her despite the girl's age since they did not know each other previously. It is unknown at the moment in exchange for what amount the forced marriage could have been closed.

The man and the girl got married and began to live together. It didn't take long for a pregnancy to arrive. The malformations in the fetus were the reason why he had to abort and why the Civil Guard knew about his case. At the hospital they raised the alarm and the Juvenile Prosecutor's Office contacted the agents of the Armed Institute.

The investigators then began efforts to find out the current status of the minor, as well as to be able to locate her, finding out that the girl was pregnant again. In this way, they were able to verify that the minor had been captured through social networks in March 2023 with the purpose of contracting an arranged marriage with a man who resided in Moral de Calatrava. They brought her in after her.

For this reason, the protocol for the abandonment of minors was activated as a matter of urgency, with the

Social Welfare Department of the Community Board of Castilla-La Mancha

taking charge of the minor .

The man is charged with a crime of human trafficking due to forced marriage, and another of sexual assault on a minor under 16 years of age, which makes the sentence worse. In the operation, the parents of the minor and the parents of the husband were also arrested for another crime of trafficking in human beings for the purposes of forced marriage, arranged child marriage.

The operation has been carried out by the

Organic Unit of the Judicial Police of Ciudad Real

. The proceedings have been brought to the attention of the

Court of First Instance and Investigation of Valdepeñas

, and the Juvenile Prosecutor's Office. The operation was carried out within the actions that the Civil Guard has been implementing to eradicate human trafficking.

This device is added to the one carried out at the end of February also in the province of Ciudad Real, in this case in the town of

Malagón

. The Civil Guard arrested the mother and stepfather of a 12-year-old girl who was going to be forced to marry in exchange for 3,000 euros. The girl had stated in her environment that she was receiving regular physical attacks from her mother, and that she did not want to be at her home. The minor reported that her parents were going to marry her for 3,000 euros. Her parents were arrested and the girl was rescued in

Baza (Granada)

, where she had traveled to be forced to marry.