A Norwegian anti-forced-marriage NGO’s book shaped EU Council of Europe policy directly

Evidence

In October 2003 the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe tabled for discussion a motion signed by twenty-six member countries to encourage European states to tackle the problem of forced marriages. As its rationale, the motion made reference to Hege Storhaug’s book Human Visas: A Report from the Front Lines of Europe’s Integration Crisis, a study of forced marriages based on a report to the Norwegian Parliament submitted by Human Rights Service. The recommendations of Human Rights Service concerning changes to family reunification through marriage requirements (a marriage contract will now have to spell out that women have the right of divorce before spouses can enter Norway) has the support of the Norwegian parliament. — Sherene Razack, Casting Out, 258

Categorization

• SEED: Angle: how a single partisan NGO report became the direct textual basis of a twenty-six-country EU parliamentary motion — a concrete case study in how civil-society advocacy shapes border policy.
• XREF: connects to: A humanitarian NGO deliberately modeled itself on a right-wing US think tank. — Jessica Whyte, The Morals of the Market: Human Rights…, 424