Dozens of underage girls as young as nine have been identified as being at risk of being married off as child brides over the past two years.
Documents released by the Australian Federal Police show 57 young girls were reported as being coerced into illegal marriages, most of them from Sydney.
In some cases girls have been taken overseas and forced to wed adult men, leaving Australian authorities unable to act or prevent the marriages.
Dozens of underage girls as young as nine have been identified as being at risk of being married off as child brides over the past two years (pictured is stock footage of a child wedding)
Documents released by the Australian Federal Police show 57 young girls were reported as being coerced into illegal marriages, most of them from Sydney (pictured is footage from a child marriage performed in Melbourne by imam Ibrahim Omerdic)
The documents reveal 50 girls from Sydney have been at risk, as well as two from the mid-north coast, two in the Murrumbidgee area, one in the Hunter region and one in Illawarra, Seven News reported.
Two sisters from Liverpool in Sydney’s west were flown overseas to be married off, and there are reports another girl was preyed upon while out of the country
An email exists alleging a girl was being ‘held against her will’, and a situation report claimed a girl ‘will be forced into marriage at the end of the school year’.
Family and Human Services Minister Pru Goward (pictured) says people know what is going on and they need to come forward and tell the authorities
Family and Human Services Minister Pru Goward says people know what is going on and they need to come forward and tell the authorities.
‘No wonder they feel such enormous pressure. Poor little nine-year-old, to have to struggle with her parents,’ she said.
The news comes after a 34-year-old Muslim man was arrested for marrying a 14-year-old girl in Melbourne last year.
The imam involved, Ibrahim Omerdic, was spared jail after being found guilty of unlawfully solemnising the marriage.
In June a Lebanese man, 31, was arrested after allegedly abducting an 18-year-old girl from her bedroom and taking her to a home in Lakemba to be married by a sheikh.
Controversial halal businessman Mohamed Elmouelhy has claimed Muslim men who marry teenagers are treated worse than paedophiles.
Daily Mail Australia contacted the Australian Federal Police and Family and Community Services for comment.
Halal businessman Mohamed Elmouelhy (pictured) says Muslim men are often treated worse than paedophiles