Police in Pakistan arrested a man who allegedly kept his wife and five children captive at home for more than a decade.
The victim, French national Sylvie Yasmina, claims her husband assaulted her and the children physically and mentally on a daily basis. She describes him as "very violent," according to local police.
Yasmina’s eldest son managed to escape the cramped household and filed a police report, which prompted a raid on the family’s home in Bara, a remote town in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.
Official officers found the family in a dilapidated room, surrounded by bruises and neglect, and took them to a women’s shelter in Peshawar.
The couple had moved from Australia to Pakistan in 2014 after meeting in 2003. Yasmina says she has had no communication with the outside world since then, and her husband has reportedly been living illegally in Australia before the move.
According to a senior police officer, Yasmina was not allowed to meet anyone, her older children missed their studies, and her youngest children were never enrolled in school.
The police have identified the husband as a Pakistani national but have yet to determine his identity beyond being an illegal resident. Yasmina and her children plan to move back to France once the legal process concludes.
