FRENCH WOMAN AND FIVE CHILDREN RESCUED IN PAKISTAN AFTER DECADE IN CAPTIVITY

Police in Pakistan have arrested a man accused of holding his wife and five children captive and abusing them for more than a decade. Sylvie Yasmina, a French national, reported that the man assaulted the family physically and mentally on a daily basis. One of their sons escaped to alert police, prompting a raid on their house in Bara, a remote town in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province. Officers found Yasmina and her children in a cramped, deteriorated room bearing visible bruises.

Yasmina and her husband, a Pakistani national, married in 2003 and lived in Australia before moving to Pakistan in 2014 with their two older children. According to police, the man had been residing illegally in Australia before the couple relocated. Since moving to Pakistan, Yasmina stated she had no contact with the outside world. The two oldest children missed their schooling; the three younger children were born in Pakistan and never enrolled in school. In a statement to police, Yasmina described feeling her future and her children's futures had been destroyed.

Yasmina and her five children have been transferred to a women's shelter in Peshawar. According to police, the family plan to return to France. Authorities have not publicly identified the arrested man beyond confirming his Pakistani nationality.