Police in Pakistan have arrested a man who allegedly held his wife and children captive in their home for more than a decade.
Sylvie Yasmina, a 54‑year‑old French national, says her husband physically and mentally abused her and their five children on a daily basis, describing him as "very violent". The family had been silent for years, living in a cramped and dilapidated room on the outskirts of Bara in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.
A son finally managed to sneak out and report the abuse, prompting a police raid that revealed bruises all over the family’s bodies. The authorities detained the husband, who is alleged to have resided illegally in Australia before the couple met, and the victims were taken to a women’s shelter in Peshawar.
Yasmina said her husband had "effectively imprisoned" the family since their move from Australia to Pakistan in 2014, preventing her from meeting anyone and derailing the children’s schooling. She added that she had no communication with the outside world since then and that her future and that of her children felt destroyed.
The police plan to aid the family in returning to France, while the case has drawn attention to the hidden domestic violence that can occur in remote expatriate settings.
