Forced child marriage

A PAKISTANI woman who confessed to having an affair was forced to marry her four-year-old son to her lover’s three-year-old daughter as part of punishment imposed by village elders.

Mumtaz Mai, 45, was also beaten up and had her hair shorn off on orders of a traditional village council in Chaddar Bhanda, 280 miles south of the capital, Islamabad. She has been arrested as have two of the men who carried out the punishment, said police official Riaz Ahmed.

Adultery carries a maximum punishment of death by stoning in Pakistan, but such punishments have never been enforced. The forced child marriage was meant to compensate Mai’s family for her lost honour.

The council was convened by Mai’s husband, Mohammed Hussein, to punish her for the affair with Ghulam Mustafa. After the verdict, several men including Mai’s brother beat her and cut off her hair. The brother and the council leader who issued the sentence were both arrested by police on charges of public humiliation, Mr Ahmed said.

Shortly after the council’s ruling, an Islamic cleric in the village performed a marriage ceremony between Mai’s son and Mustafa’s daughter.

Mustafa was also ordered to give Mai’s family a bull cart and some land as compensation. Children are often promised in marriage at a young age in Pakistan, with the union consummated only after they reach childbearing age. Still, Ahmed said authorities are asking Islamic scholars whether the forced marriage was legally valid.

The independent Human Rights Commission of Pakistan said in a report last week that at least 461 women have been killed by family members in so-called “honour killings” this year.