Court Expected to Send
Runaway Teen Home
Despite Muslim Honor
Killing Fears
Updated: Friday, 21 Aug 2009, 3:46 AM CDT
Published : Thursday, 20 Aug 2009, 4:46 PM CDT
A 17-year-old girl who fled to Florida after converting from Islam to Christianity will almost certainly be forced to return
home to Ohio, experts say -- despite her fears that she will become the victim of an honor killing for abandoning her
parents' faith.
Rifqa Bary, who hitchhiked to an Ohio bus station earlier this month and took a charter bus to Orlando, remains in
protective custody with Florida's Department of Children and Families. A judge is expected to rule Friday on the
jurisdiction of the case, but several legal experts contacted by FOXNews.com say the girl is bound to be sent back to
Ohio.
"She'll be returned to the original jurisdiction," said Katherine Hunt Federle, professor of law and director of the
Justice for Children Project at Ohio State University's Moritz College of Law.
"She probably doesn't have a lot of options other than to return home."
Bary, a native of Sri Lanka who turned 17 earlier this month, is neither a U.S. citizen nor a resident of Florida, so if
her parents want her returned to their home in New Albany, Ohio, that likely will occur, experts said.
"She's living and residing in Ohio," Federle said. "Typically, what happens is, if a child runs away and goes to another
jurisdiction, she'll be returned to the original jurisdiction."
If she is sent back to Ohio, Bary will not be allowed to live on her own, since the state does not have an emancipation
statute.
Florida has such a statute, but it requires parental consent, according to Fred Silberberg, a family law expert based in
California who is familiar with the case.
Given that legal hurdle, Bary likely will be returned to Ohio, where authorities could intervene if they believe there is a
threat or a basis to act, Silberberg said.
Rifqa fled to Florida after her parents, Mohamed and Aysha Bary, learned that she was baptized earlier this year
without their knowledge. The parents reported her missing to Columbus Police on July 19. Weeks later, using cell
phone and computer records, police tracked the girl to the Rev. Blake Lorenz, pastor of the Orlando-based Global
Revolution Church. FOXNews.com's calls to Lorenz were not returned.
In an emotional six-minute interview with WFTV in Florida, Rifqa, who met Lorenz through an online Facebook group,
said she expects to be killed if she is forced to return to Ohio.
"If I had stayed in Ohio, I wouldn't be alive," she said. "In 150 generations in family, no one has known Jesus. I am
the first — imagine the honor in killing me.
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