Meet Norway’s 12-year-old child bride

POSTING pictures from wedding dress shopping trips, make-up trials, and call-outs for advice on table decorations and invitations, Thea’s wedding blog looks mostly like any other.

The Norwegian girls shares snaps of herself and her fiance, and appeals for wedding advice. She also shares her love of One Direction and what she learns at school.
That’s because Thea is 12 years old, which is one detail that sets her blog apart from those of other brides-to-be.

Thea and her ‘fiance’

Wedding dress shopping.

The blog, Thea’s Bryllup, which translates to “Thea’s Wedding”, was started in August with a post from the pre-teen sharing news she was to marry a man 25 years her senior.
“I learned from Mum yesterday that I’m getting married,” she writes.
“I will marry a man named Geir and it is a bit strange because I know he really is so grown up.”
Since then, posts have varied from pics of the excited looking child proudly wearing her engagement ring and showing off the wedding bands she will exchange with her 37-year-old partner in the arranged marriage, to frustrated rants about having to leave her school.

Wedding invitations.

“I don’t know if it’s a good idea to quit school ... I don’t know if I like this wedding stuff,” one post reads.
In another, Thea writes about arguing with her mother, which is not unusual for a 12-year-old girl, only the post also contains the revelation that she may soon be expected to become a mother herself.
“What does she mean by that exactly? Think he want me to get my own children soon?” a translation reads.
“I know that is normal when you get married especially if you have sex and stuff.”

Pic: http://theasbryllup.blogg.no/ Source: Supplied

Pic: http://theasbryllup.blogg.no/ Source: Supplied

The blog, has shocked thousands of concerned reading, posting outraged comments and some even reporting the issue to police.
But thankfully, there is another difference between Thea and other brides-to-be, and that is that she’s not getting married at all.
The whole thing is a stunt set up by Plan, an international aid organisation, in an effort to draw attention to the issue of child brides.
“We really wanted to bring home the issue and by creating a shock factor, we think we have really got peoples’ attention,” Plan’s director Olaf Thommessen told the Independent.
“We have all kinds of people engaging, people who are not usually motivated or involved in these kinds of things — the response has been immense.”
The shocking blog is leading up to the fictional couple’s wedding date, October 11, which coincides with the UN’s International Day of the Girl Child.