A French woman, Sylvie Yasmina, 54, has been rescued in Pakistan after alleging her husband held her and their five children captive in a remote village for 12 years. Pakistani police found the mother and children covered in bruises.
Ms. Yasmina told authorities that she married her husband, who is alleged to have been living illegally in Australia, in Australia in 2003. The family relocated to Bara, Pakistan, in 2014. According to Ms. Yasmina's statement to police, from that point onward, she was deprived of contact with the outside world and subjected to daily assaults by her husband. She described their living conditions as being confined to an "extremely dilapidated room."
"He beat us and put pressure on our lives on a daily basis," Ms. Yasmina stated in her police report. She further expressed concerns that her future and that of her children had been ruined. A senior police officer cited by BBC Urdu noted that the two older children had missed their education, and the three born in Pakistan had never attended school.
The rescue occurred after one of Ms. Yasmina's sons managed to escape and alert the police, leading to a raid on the family's residence. Ms. Yasmina expressed gratitude to the authorities for their intervention, stating, "I am grateful for the help, for our lives... It was very, very difficult, we went through really bad times since 2014 so I'm so grateful that you guys helped us."
The victims have been transferred to a women's shelter in Peshawar, and authorities report that Ms. Yasmina and her children plan to return to France. The husband's identity has not been released by the authorities.