It is, of course possible that she's lying about her age; refugees sometimes take a few years off the kids' real age so that they can stay longer in school to make up for what education they didn't get at home. What shocks me is that some hospital or other must have been in contact with this girl when she had the other two kids. Why wasn't action taken after the first? Unless this is a language problem, maybe she had two pregnancies, but miscarried? Still, some traditions are barbaric, even if they are common in another culture. It doesn't make them ok, just because they are "cultural".