Sara Sharif case

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The murder case of 10-year-old British Pakistani Sara Sharif has finally reached an appropriate end, with her father, stepmother and uncle sentenced to almost 90 years in prison among them. The court found that while Sara's father, Urfan Sharif, had pleaded guilty, there was enough evidence to show that Sara's stepmother, Beinash Batool, and uncle, Faisal Malik, also bore responsibility for "causing or allowing her death".

Sara was beaten with cricket bats and kitchenware, burned, and even bitten by Urfan and Beinash for at least two years leading up to her death in 2023. The trial exposed horrific details of abuse, including over 70 fresh injuries and many older ones, leading to questions about the failure of social services, local authorities and the community to protect her. The trial was told that nobody expressed concern when Sara showed up at a family barbeque with visible bruises all over her body. At school, after someone noticed injuries, she was made to wear more conservative clothing. Eventually, after child services began investigating the abuse, Urfan pulled her from school, claiming he would homeschool her. She received no education at home, and child services never followed up. Some reports suggest Urfan had also claimed that he was allowed to beat her because it was part of his Pakistani-Muslim culture. Apparently, he tried using the 'race card' not just during Sara's lifetime, but also after her death. When Urfan and the others fled to Pakistan to escape punishment, his father gave them refuge, and local reports accepted his claim that UK authorities were victimising him for raising his children according to his culture.

Urfan and Beinash should consider themselves lucky. At least they get to live because the UK has no death penalty. If he were convicted and punished according to his Pakistani culture, he would have been gallows-bound. But it is worth noting that many people still believe that Urfan's crime was not beating his child, but only that he went too far. To them, we can only say that beating children like this is not parenting; it is torture.