Poverty always leads to bad luck

Rescued from child marriage, 15-year-old Hina was quite weak and very scared. Two of her blood relatives held her on either side as she walked into her parents’ home.

According to Abida Naqvi, her mother, “Hina’s father worked in the army and died when she was too young. She tried to get the pension but all her efforts proved unfruitful as being an illiterate woman she could not provide the required papers to the concerned department.”

“Having been disappointed, being a mother of five minor daughters and sons I became worried sick about their future and decided to work as a domestic servant. Some years later, my two young daughters Saleha and Anmol also joined hands with me as domestic workers,” adds Abida.

With little earnings, she could not even provide them with proper food, so she decided to lessen her burden by finding marriage partners for her daughters.

“Even though Hina was third in line amongst the daughters, she was married out of her family two years ago to a man twice his father’s age from one of the slum areas. Before she knew it, she was on a rickshaw to a slum dwelling at the mercy of the old man called her husband,” says Aalia, Hina’s auntie.

“She was so innocent at the time of her marriage that she was lured into marriage with candies and sweets. Until her rescue, she had been working in people’s homes around the slum area — cooking, cleaning, and taking care of children. She was never allowed to sit down and rest awhile,” says Saleha, Hina’s eldest sister.

“She was physically assaulted and verbally abused by her husband and his family members since the time she was pushed into marriage wedlock. She was threatened that if she told his parents about it, they would sell her to somebody else and she would never be able to meet her brothers and sisters in the future,” says Anmol, Hina’s sister, second in number.

Hina’s mother was just relieved to have found her after a court battle but the family was financially weak to bear her burden. “What could she do? She did not have enough money to meet family needs so they started thinking about her second marriage, this time within the family.

“But what happened? This time Hina’s marriage partner was her first cousin despite his bad reputation in the neighbourhood,” says Pakeeza, Hina’s younger sister aged 15.

Girls sent into early marriage face inescapable surrender. Hina’s sufferings even after the second marriage became more unbearable as her in-laws demanded dowry. After a bundle of disputes and conflicts, again her mother went to court to seek relief in the form of “khula”. As a result, Hina again is with the mother adding to her agony.