Landlord sells girl as slave in Sind, Pakistan

Landlord sells girl as slave in Sind, Pakistan

6

In Kotri, a small town in the Indus Valley, in the province of Sind, Pakistan, a sharecropper, Nazar Mohammed, could not pay a debt of Rs.20,000 ($350) that he had borrowed to buy a water-buffalo. A local landlord, Arbab Allabachayo, in a region dominated politically and economically by large-landholders, decided in a council meeting with other landlords that the debtor would be made to forfeit his 11-year-old daughter to the creditor, a man named Shabbir Peerzada.

Shabbir took the girl, Najma, to a Muslim cleric so that they could be wed. The cleric refused. Thereupon Shabbir Peerzada held the young girl as a sex slave.

After a month of rape and sexual degradation Najma ran away and contacted the police. She told the police about rape and torture. She had cigarette burns all over her body. Instead of arresting the accused and the powerful landlord, the police arrested the girl's father and kept him in jail for a month.

Till now, no action has been taken against the rapist and the men who made the decision to sell the girl.

2002-11-06

41

115

1

Urdu

Pakistan Post

briefs

Landlord sells girl as slave in Sind, Pakistan

Rehan Ansari

born-digital

article

yes

no

2002-11-06