"I was too young to get married," girl said, as she narrated her story at the office of the Madadgar National Helpline in Karachi on Saturday PHOTO: FILE
KARACHI:
Though her father's beatings and death-threats still haunt her, S*, who was forced to say 'Qabool hai' at the tender age of 14, now wants to take her father and other perpetrators to court.
"I was too young to get married," she said, as she narrated her story at the office of the Madadgar National Helpline in Karachi on Saturday. The teary-eyed girl recalled the time around five months ago when her father took her to a relative's house and forced her to put on a shining red dress to get married.
"I did not know he was taking me to the relative's to marry me off," she said. "My mother died when I was young I have been raised by my maternal grandmother and aunt." Her father received a motorcycle and Rs70,000 for marrying her off to a physically handicapped son of a police officer, the 14-year-old claimed.
S* claims she was regularly subjected to abuse and often beaten up by her husband and in-laws. She finally managed to run away to her grandmother's house in a slum of Gulshan-e-Iqbal.
Fearing threats to her life, she was moved to the Panah shelter home where she stayed for two months. On Thursday, however, the court handed her custody back to her grandmother, dismissing the abduction case that her father had filed against her maternal relatives.
S*'s aunt, Rukhsana, who was also present at the press conference, said that they were constantly receiving threats from her father. She said that the girl's elder sister was also married at the age of 14 to a man who already had six children. "This was a watta satta arrangement as S*'s father got married to a young girl and in return, married his daughter to an elderly man of the family. We couldn't do much then, but now we want to do something for S*."
Lawyer Zia Ahmed Awan, who is the founder of the organisation, hopes to get her case registered under the Sindh Child Restraint Marriage Act which was recently passed by the Sindh Assembly, as well as under the Cruelty against Children Act.
"We will register an FIR against all the perpetrators," he said, demanding a medical board to determine her age since the girl does not have a birth certificate. "Her father made a fake certificate declaring her to be 18 years-old but her age is not more than 14."
Awan said that other provinces should follow Sindh's example and also pass law against child marriages. According to the organisation, their helpline received 42 cases of early and forced marriages across the country during the first four months of the current year.
"She is traumatised as she has been abused by her husband and in laws," said Awan. "For two months, she was at the shelter home, and has been going to the court for her case. She needs a lot of counseling."
*Name withheld to protect privacy
Published in The Express Tribune, June 1st, 2014.
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How can a father do this to his own child? He should be prosecuted severely.