Victim of parental neglect & child marriage
KARACHI, May 3: Thirteen-year-old Nasreen, hailing from a small village of Punjab and now living in a shelter home here, has experienced far more harsh realities of life than girls her age generally do.
“Three years ago my father, Rana Bashir, married me off to an old man, Mohammad Shafee, in return for Rs60,000. I didn’t know what was happening. They took my thumb impression on a paper and later I learnt that I had been married to a man who appeared older than even my father,” Nasreen said, adding that “most of the teeth in his mouth were also missing”.
Her husband regularly beat her up, claiming that he was well within his rights to do so because he had purchased her. He said that he had also given Rs10,000 to the person who had arranged the match.
“He used to hurl threats at me, saying that he would sell me to his brothers for more money,” Nasreen said. He would also sharpen his dagger and brandished it in front of me menacingly, she added.
“My weeping would often become another excuse for my further thrashing,” she recalled. Unaware of the proper name of the locality where she used to live with her in-laws in Karachi – she called it ‘Biryani Chowk’ – Nasreen said her husband sold sugarcane juice. “About six months back, he took me to a shrine called Abdullah Shah Ghazi’s tomb. There I decided to run away and managed to do so with success,” she said.
“After I had covered a considerable distance on foot, a motorcycle rider saw me and asked me where I was going. On my unsatisfactory reply, he brought me to the Ansar Burney Welfare Trust,” she said.
“What we have gathered from her description is that Mohammad Shafee, her husband, was aged between 55 and 60. She doesn’t know the proper address of her father’s house. She only remembers the name of her village as ‘Mochiwala’ in Punjab,” said Sarim Burney, vice-chairman of the Ansar Burney Welfare Trust.
“Initially she was reluctant to speak, but she gradually opened up and shared her tragic life story with us. Although she never went to school, Nasreen has shown a keen interest in getting education. She is being given religious education at the shelter. We cannot enroll her in a proper school for fear of her security,” Sarim added.
“In the beginning she said her name was Komal fearing that she might be returned to her husband, but later when we won her confidence she disclosed her real name as Nasreen,” he added.
“We were very young when our mother left us to marry another man. Later our father also married another woman,” Nasreen recalled. “I have five sisters and a brother, who used to work at a small hotel in the village. My elder sister, Aasia Parveen, had been married to an old man in the same manner as I was,” said Nasreen. “However, she complained to our father of the ill treatment she received at the in-laws. Father brought her back and returned the cash to her husband. She was later married off again and is living happily now,” Nasreen recalled.
When asked why she also didn’t tell her father about the ill treatment at the hands of her husband and the disturbing factor of his age, she said that “after selling me for Rs60,000 my father never contacted me. He even didn’t call me to ask if I was alive. Even if I had told him of my plight, he wouldn’t have rescued me,” Nasreen remarked.
Regarding her future, Sarim Burney said: “We can neither return the girl to her husband nor take her back to her village as she will not be safe at either place.”
“After fulfilling the legal formalities, we hope to marry her off to a suitable man once she is old enough to be married. This is how we have solved several similar cases,” says the vice-chairman of the Ansar Burney Welfare Trust.
Source: Dawn
Date:4/5/2007
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