A man in Pakistan has been arrested for allegedly keeping his wife and five children locked inside their home for more than 10 years and subjecting them to physical and mental abuse.
The woman, identified as French national Sylvie Yasmina, told police that her husband was “very violent” and abused the family “on a daily basis”, according to the BBC.
The case came to light after one of Yasmina’s sons managed to escape and approach police. Acting on his complaint, officers raided their home in Bara, a remote area in Pakistan’s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.
Inside the house, police found Yasmina and her children living in a cramped and “extremely dilapidated room”. Officials said they had bruises on their bodies.
Yasmina and her children have since been moved to a women’s shelter in Peshawar, with authorities saying they plan to return to France.
Family Allegedly Cut Off From Outside World
Yasmina, 54, claimed that her husband had “effectively imprisoned” the family after they moved from Australia to Pakistan in 2014.
“According to the woman… She was not allowed to meet anyone, their two older children had missed their studies, while the three younger children were born in Pakistan and never enrolled in school,” a senior police officer told BBC Urdu.
The couple, who married in 2003, had lived in Australia with their two older children before relocating to Pakistan. Yasmina said she had no contact with the outside world after the move.
Authorities have not revealed the identity of the husband but said he is a Pakistani national who was “residing illegally” in Australia when he met Yasmina.
In her statement to police, Yasmina described years of suffering, saying, “We were deprived [of our] freedom, my husband didn’t take care of us the way he should as a husband and the father of my children. He beats us and put pressure on our lives on a daily basis.”
She added, “I felt that my future was already ruined, the future of the children would also be ruined.”
