Campaign against forced marriage launched in Rotterdam

Rotterdam launched a campaign against forced marriages on Wednesday. The campaign consists of a number of posters of all kinds of people kissing, with a simple message: In the Netherlands you choose your own partner.

Leefbaar Rotterdam alderman Ronald Schneider hung the first poster on Wednesday. "I live in Rotterdam-Zuid, where I sometimes see couples secretly holding hands against the quay wall", he said to RTV Rijnmond. "This is the Netherlands in 2017. It can not be that a girl and a boy of around 20 should still secretly hold each others and?"

The campaign is particularly aimed at women. "It's about freedom of choice. In a lot of communities it is not yet the case that girls feel free to choose their own partner."