Not My Choice

What if you have to choose between your freedom and your family — or if you can't choose at all?
In Not My Choice, five experts by experience and five care providers share their stories about forced marriage and abandonment. Ten different perspectives, from various situations. Some were forced to marry, others were left behind in another country without a passport, without a voice. And some stood on the other side: as a care provider, listening, arranging, anxiously waiting for a sign of life.

This exhibition shows how complex these situations are. How drastic. And how close.

The faces remain anonymous — but the stories are real.

Not My Choice wants to make visible what often remains hidden. It gives space to sadness, to strength, to doubt, to perseverance. And above all: to recognition.

So that we learn to listen, to ask questions, to ask further questions. And so that no one ever has to disappear in silence

Credits
Not My Choice is a project by the National Hub for Forced Marriage and Abandonment (LKHA), on the occasion of its 10th anniversary, in collaboration with Stichting Open Mind, which produces and presents the exhibition.

The artistic concept, stories, photography and design were provided by Ernst Coppejans.