Farah (right of centre) with her family after her ordeal.
“They repeatedly raped my daughter. She was in trauma after being subjected to physical and medical torture.” 120
Farah was 12 when she was abducted in June 2020 but Mr Ahmad alleged she was over 16, the legal age for marriage. The court ordered a medical investigation of Farah. Examining her teeth, bones and genitalia, the medics gave her age as 16 or 17. Farah’s father dismissed the medical Àndings as “an outright lie.” 123 On February 16, 2021, however, the court ruled the marriage unlawful ― the judge cited evidence that the marriage had not been registered properly ― and allowed her to return home. Farah said she had told the court she had agreed to the marriage because her abductor told her if she said she’d been coerced, “He’d Àrst kill me, then murder… my whole family.” 124 Farah’s father described his “dismay” at the handling of the case, saying authorities were guilty of “repeatedly letting us down.” 125 The previous month (January 2021), the police dropped an investigation into three men including Mr Ahmad. 126 The family expressed frustration that no action was taken against Farah’s abductor. 127
Farah’s father also told ACN what happened when he reported Farah’s kidnapping to police: “I was called ‘chuhra’ [an insult meaning ‘dirty’ 121 ]. The police refused to listen to me” and would not register the incident. “They pushed me around and physically abused me.” Asif Masih said it was three months before the police opened the case by Àling a First Information Report (FIR). Finally, at the beginning of December, Farah was discovered at Mr Ahmad’s house in HaÀzabad, nearly 112km from her home. 122 Her ankles were wounded where she had been shackled. Farah was placed in a women and girls’ refuge while a court case assessed the validity of her marriage. Central to the case, heard at Faisalabad District and Sessions’ Court, was whether Farah was underage at the time of her marriage. A birth certiÀcate showed
| 33
Powered by FlippingBook