LAHORE, March 8: Virgie Orpilla was happily married back in her native Philippines and working as a dietitian in a Madina hospital in Saudi Arabia. Her son and daughter were living with their father in Manila when Pakistani van driver, Tahir Mahmood Qureshi, also working in the same hospital, entered her life.

A resident of Samanabad, Lahore, Tahir soon proposed to her. She declined the proposal but Tariq frightened her, saying if she didn't marry him he would crash the van and they would both die together.

After arguments and assurances that he would support her children in the Philippines if she were to divorce her husband, Tahir was able to convince Virgie to marry him. She renounced Christianity and embraced Islam, and was renamed Yasmeen Tahir in 1992.

The couple then flew to Manila and managed separation from Virgie's husband. They then reached Lahore, and thereafter, the Filipino's life took a new turn which entailed nothing but misery.

Tahir lured her with a home of their own and a better life, asking her to 'lend' him 75,000 Saudi riyals and about 50 tolas of gold. These were the savings she had managed to put aside during her job in Saudi Arabia. "I gave him the money because he was my husband with whom I wanted to live the rest of my life," said Yasmeen.

Covered in a chaadar and clad in shalwar-kameez, with hands moving rosary beads, Yasmeen's face was her only exposed physical feature. She was speaking to this reporter at the chamber of Advocate Rabbiya Bajwa, who is fighting her case for the custody of her 12-year-old son, Fazlur Rehman Qureshi, and a permanent residence in Pakistan.

"Please pray for me to get my son back," pleaded Yasmeen in between sobs. She broke down several times during the conversation in English, at times switching to Urdu which she has learnt in the last 13 years.

She was brought to the lawyer's chamber by Shabana Asif, who by chance had become her friend during their frequent meetings at the school where their children studied.

Shabana later rescued Yasmeen from her home in Samanabad under orders of the high court after she had been locked up in a room by her in-laws for two weeks. She is now living with Shabana in Babu Sabu on the Bund Road.

And now back to their story: when Yasmeen and Tahir reached Lahore from the Philippines in 1992, they lived here only for a week or so and then Tahir left for Saudi Arabia. The first shock she received was in the form of Tahir's refusal to take her along. But she was happy and sought solace in her baby boy and the family which had not yet turned on her.

About a year later, her mother-in-law and her younger son started telling her that she should return to her country. In the beginning, she could not understand why Tahir's family was asking her to go back to the Philippines.

Then she came to know that her husband had already been a married man, and was living with his wife in Saudi Arabia before wedding her, she not only understood the reason behind the family's insistence but also started asserting her right.

When Yasmeen resisted, the family started intimidating her and things worsened for her. Yasmeen alleges that her mother-in-law and Tahir's younger brother used to thrash her, and locked her up in a room for days. Otherwise, she found herself reduced to a housemaid.

She says she was forced to clean the entire house, sweep floors, wash dishes and clothes. For years, she worked like this and lived like a prisoner. The only interest she was left with in the home was her child for whom she was putting up with all the agony.

"I can't go back to Manila because my brother will kill me for renouncing my faith. My parents have died and there is no one to protect me there," replied Yasmeen. She said her mother was a great protector but she died a year ago.

"Now I am Muslim and a Pakistani citizen and happy to be so. I may spend my life in the service of Islam," she said. When Yasmeen was locked up in the room once more, she wrote a letter to her friend Shabana, which she dropped in the street and someone posted it. Shabana sent the letter to Advocate Rabbiya Bajwa who converted it into a habeas corpus petition for the Lahore High Court.

When Yasmeen was produced in the court by the bailiff, her son was also there. "I don't know what my in-laws did to my son that he chose to return with his grandmother," she said. The court later passed an order that she was free to approach a family court for her son's custody.

A graduate in diet and food nutrition, Yasmeen has an offer from a Lahore college to teach there. But busy coming to grips with her circumstances, she says she is not quite prepared to take up a job just yet. But she says she will soon start teaching and simultaneously fight the legal battle for her son's custody. Advocate Rabbiya Bajwa is preparing a petition to be filed with court.