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Mom gets 3 years for forced marriages

MANCHESTER, England, May 21 (UPI) -- A Muslim woman who forced her teenage daughters to marry cousins in Pakistan was sentenced Thursday to three years in a British prison.

The Manchester woman, a British citizen, was also ordered to register as a sex offender for the rest of her life, the Daily Mail reported. She has not been identified to protect her daughters.

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"You have absolutely no idea of the enormity of what you have done or its effect upon your daughters," Judge Clement Goldstone told her. "Forced marriage is cruel -- it deprives children, your children, of their basic human rights. It must, and will, be distinguished by the courts from arranged marriage, which is conventional in many religions and societies."

Investigators said the woman forced her daughters into marriage in 2007 after bringing them to Pakistan for a family wedding. When they returned to England and school, the girls told teachers about their marriages, and the teachers then called police.

The daughters said their mother also told them they had to have sex with their husbands, threatening to tie the older girl down if she refused to consummate her marriage.

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