Excerpt:
In a messy office on the outskirts of Bradford, Asama Javed is advising her latest client. The immigration lawyer is sitting behind a large desk cluttered with Home Office papers and folders, piled on top of each other in precarious towers. She is wearing a white hijab, with black sunglasses perched on top of her head, and waves her right hand in front of her for emphasis.
“If she is mentally or physically ready and she is 15 or 16 years old, then there is no harm in it,” she says, addressing a Pakistani man who has come for advice about his teenage daughters.
“My [friend] was married when she was 15 but, by the grace of God, she was intelligent. Her daughters have also reached the age of marriage and they are being married.”