French woman allegedly held captive by husband for 12 years rescued in Pakistan

Police in Pakistan have arrested a man who allegedly held his wife and children captive at home and abused them for more than a decade.

His wife, a French national named Sylvie Yasmina, claims the man assaulted her family physically and mentally on a daily basis, describing him as “very violent”, local police told the BBC.

One of their sons managed to sneak out to make a police report, which led to a raid of their house in Bara, a remote town in the mountainous Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.

Police found Yasmina and her five children in a cramped and “extremely dilapidated room”, with bruises all over their bodies.

Yasmina and her children have been taken to a women’s shelter in Peshawar. They plan to move back to France, according to police.

According to Yasmina, 54, her husband had “effectively imprisoned” the family since they moved to Pakistan from Australia in 2014.

She was not allowed to meet anyone, her two older children missed their studies, while the three younger were born in Pakistan and never enrolled in school, a senior police officer told the BBC.

The authorities have not identified Yasmina’s husband, a Pakistani national who was “residing illegally” in Australia when the couple met. They married in 2003 and lived in Australia until 2014, when they moved to Pakistan with their two older children.

Yasmina claims she has not had any communication with the outside world since then. “We were deprived of our freedom, my husband didn't take care of us the way he should as a husband and the father of my children. He beats us and puts pressure on our lives on a daily basis,” she wrote in her statement to the police.

She added, “I felt that my future was already ruined, the future of the children would also be ruined.”