Woman and five children rescued after being held captive in single room for 12 years
A 54-year-old mother from France and her five children have been rescued after her husband allegedly kept them captive in a single, dilapidated room for twelve years
The mother of five was allegedly kept as a prisoner in her own home for 12 years(Image: Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Police)
A man has been arrested after allegedly imprisoning his wife and children in a single room where they were physically and psychologically abused for twelve years.
The more than a decade of alleged abuse was only uncovered when one of women’s sons was able to sneak out of the home and alert police officers to what had been going on, leading to a police raid on the home.
During a search of the property in Pakistan, cops found French national Sylvie Yasmina and the remaining four of her five children huddled in a filthy and cramped room that had essentially been their cell, according to the BBC.
Yasmina and her children were taken from the house in the remote town of Bara in Pakistan’s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province to a refuge shelter in the city of Peshawar.
The 54-year-old mother told BBC Urdu that her “very violent” husband had abused her “on a daily basis”.
In a statement to police, she reportedly said: “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”
“We have scars on our faces and other parts of our bodies due to his violent outbursts. I felt that my future was already ruined, the future of the children would also be ruined.”
Police say that Yasmina and her five children, one of whom is reportedly deaf and mute, plan to return to her native France.
A police spokesperson said of the incident: “”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.”
Pakistani cops are yet to name Yasmina’s husband, although according to the BBC the pair met in Australia where he had been “residing illegally”, marrying in 2003 before moving to his home in Pakistan in 2014.
The investigation into the alleged imprisonment and abuse remains on-going.
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