Norwegian officials initially doubted whether media reports of forced marriage were exaggerated

Evidence

At a Metropolis conference in September 2002, Lise Grette, a senior adviser in the Ministry of Children and Family Affairs, explained the history of Norwegian initiatives since 1995 and the reasons behind the government’s earlier tentativeness. Ten years ago, Grette noted, when newspapers revealed that immigrant mothers were arranging marriages for their children to people in the homeland owing to a lack of marriage partners, and that some marriages were forced or arranged between minors, the government was uncertain whether the media had blown the problem out of proportion and stigmatized minorities or many young girls were indeed being forced into marriage. — Sherene Razack, Casting Out, 311

Categorization

• QUESTION: The passage raises the recurring tension between genuine concern for immigrant girls’ welfare and the state’s invocation of minority abuse as cover for immigration control — worth tracing how this plays out across the book.