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 his family physically and mentally “on a daily basis” and described him as “very violent”, local police told BBC Urdu.

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, the police say.

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

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

Authorities have not identified Yasmina’s husband, a Pakistani national who they say 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 put pressure on our lives on a daily basis,” Yasmina wrote in her statement to the police, parts of which have been published by local media.

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