PESHAWAR, Aug 11: A 10-year-old girl, forcibly married to an Afghan by her father, was sent to a Darul Aman by a local court here on Saturday.

Five days back, the Afghan girl, Nazo, reached a police station, and said she had been married to an Afghan, Baryalae, five months ago and did not want to live with her husband, who, she said, tortured her.

The police produced the girl before the court of a judicial magistrate, Fazal Sattar, where she declined to go with her father, stating that he would again hand her over to her husband.

The court sent her to the Darul Aman, run by the All Pakistan Women’s Association. The magistrate directed an ASI of the East Cant police, Muhammad Zaman, to conduct an inquiry to ascertain as to how such a minor girl had been married by her father.

The lawyers, present in the court, stated that the girl’s marriage was in violation to the Child Marriage Restraint Act, 1929, under which, a child could not be married.

The girl told the court that she had not been aware of the meaning of marriage when his father, Nasir Khan, resident of Chamkani, had married her off to Baryalae, ignoring her hue and cry.

“I am now happy in this Darul Aman, as I have no fear of my husband here,” Nazo told Dawn, adding that “in the last five months, I faced a lot of torture and was not in a position to stand it any longer.”

She said her mother had been arrested in a narcotics case and had been languishing in a prison. After her arrest, she added, her father had married her off to a man more than thrice her age.

According to her statement, she escaped from the house of her husband to escape her torture.