The woman, who is in her 30s and lives in the Manchester area, was forced into marriage when she was just 16 and her new husband was 23.
At 17 she fell pregnant and went on to have four daughters – which angered her husband as he wanted boys.
The girls were not allowed to play outside or even allowed to laugh.
Despite the abuse, charges against the woman's husband were dropped – something the police said was not uncommon.
Speaking for the first time, the woman - known only as Sajida to protect her anonymity - said: "We couldn't breathe or think properly when he was around.
“The girls weren't allowed to laugh or giggle, they weren't allowed to play in the front garden in case boys looked at them.
Sajida said she was only 10 years old when she heard rumours she was going to be married to her 16-year-old cousin in Pakistan, where her parents are from.
She said: "Cousins started telling me but I thought it was banter, a bit of a joke. I'd never met him or seen a photo so I just dismissed it."
But the rumours persisted and when Sajida was just 16 and in the middle of her GCSEs, her dad told her they were flying to Pakistan to visit family.
She said: “My parents never said anything directly to me.
“I was in the middle of my GCSEs and I couldn't believe it. I thought, 'No way am I getting married, they just want to take me for a holiday.'
"I really liked History and English and I'd done work experience at a local nursery school. I was looking forward to getting a career."
Sajida flew to Pakistan in 1996 – and was quickly told she was there to marry her cousin. She began to panic.
"I was told, 'If you don't do it, you'll bring shame on the family.' I was also told that I could go back to my studies if I listened to them."
She describes her wedding day – when she first met her husband – as devastating, saying she "cried the whole day" while he remained emotionless.
She knew nothing about sex, but was to lose her virginity that night.
She said: "That night, after he'd done what he wanted to do, he left me on my own and went out somewhere. He didn't say where. I was left alone, crying and scared, wondering what had just happened."
Forced marriage has been illegal in the UK since 2014, but thousands of woman and girls just like Sajida, fall victim each year.
Jasvinder Sanghera, from the forced marriage victim support charity, Karma Nirvana, says that 8,000 are threatened each year.
She spent three months in Pakistan and was continually forced to have sex. She came home alone and her husband joined her three months later.
From there, she was dragged deeper and deeper into a cycle of brutal abuse.
"He raped me, there was a lot of mental torture, there was a lot of physical violence," she said.
"I had a knife held to me. Then he got this cable wire and he beat me up and I had scars all over my leg and my back.
"He tried to gas me with the cooker and tried to poison me."
After her husband beat her whilst she was pregnant with her fourth child, she finally found the courage to dial 999.
"There was a lot of pressure from family members who said, 'Stick by him. What will the community think?'
But defiant, she found the strength to call the police again two years later, after her husband threatened their children, who are now aged between 11 and 18.
"He used to say he was going to sell them off, he was going to marry them off as a lesson for getting him arrested," she said. "I didn't want my girls to suffer for the rest of their lives."
Sajida, who has since returned to her studies and wants to become a nurse, took out injunctions against her husband, and the only time she has seen him since the split was in court to renew injunctions and fight her ex-husband's claim for custody of the children.
But Sajida is adamant their dad’s evil influence will never affect her precious kids. She says: "I will never let anything like this happen to my girls."
Post a Comment