Pakistani girl like Saman: ” I too forced to marry ”

“I too, as they wanted to do with Saman, was forced by my parents to marry in Pakistan, to a cousin I had never seen, who was much older than me. I was twenty. And he thirty. After the wedding I stayed. to live in Pakistan, but I had to go back to Italy because my father had a bad accident. And he joined me in Brescia. It was hell. I was beaten and abused by my husband. I finally filed for divorce two years ago. he still makes himself found sometimes outside the house … “. Tania is a 25-year-old Pakistani girl who arrived in Italy when she was just 4 years old. He speaks Italian very well and dresses in Western style. Saman’s story impressed her very much. Because it reminds her of her past. Although Tania, after a few years, managed to free herself and is now a free woman. “But it was tough, very tough,” he says in an exclusive interview with Adnkronos. “When I was little, my parents, especially my mother – she remembers – decided that I should get married to a cousin who lived in a village in Pakistan. I didn’t want to go to my country. And for a while I managed not to leave. , however, with a deception my parents convinced me to go to Pakistan because I had to put braces on my teeth and in Italy it was too expensive, so they told me that in Pakistan we would have paid much less. my village. But here I found the nasty surprise “. It was 2017. “My aunt came to see me and started giving me lots of compliments and so they organized my wedding – she says – My father couldn’t hold back because for my family it was a matter of honor. So, without saying anything, a day the groom came to my house with his mother and an imam. So I was married in a few minutes. “” The next day my dad said ‘prepare the documents’, and I stayed in Pakistan for three years, a nightmare – Tania tells Adnkronos again – Then, my father had a bad accident and I had to go back to Italy to help him because my parents don’t speak a word of Italian. So I went back to Italy, in Brescia. But my husband started to threaten me. And I had to go back to Pakistan to sort out his documents and ask for a visa at the embassy to let him come. I took him to Italy in early 2019. Immediately after that he started asking me for a residence permit. “My father and I told him that first he had to find a job, because we couldn’t sleep at my parents’ house – she says visibly shaken – According to our culture, husbands cannot stay under the same roof as parents or in-laws. , my dad asked him to find a house to rent. But he didn’t want to because the money he made in a restaurant he sent to his parents in Pakistan. In the end my father paid him the house. We were together for a year and my husband at that time mistreated me, he beat me, he continually asked me for money to send to the country, to his people. In the meantime, shortly before the pandemic came, I lost my job as a waitress. he wanted the money and he sent the salary down to his mom. And he wanted me to ask my parents. It was a terrible time. ” “Then things got worse, he kept treating me very badly, it was a real hell – he says – I told everything to my dad, who told me: ‘Try to go on’. But it was hard for me. He thought he was still living. in the village, he had never seen a cell phone, he had never seen TV, he thought that his behavior was right, that hitting me was right “. Meanwhile, Tania’s father bought the couple a small apartment. Headed, however, not to the two young men, but to the girl’s brother. “So my husband couldn’t make any claims, and luckily we did,” she says today. After a year the girl, tired of the constant oppression, decided to take the plunge and ask for a divorce. “In Pakistan if a woman asks for a divorce she is repudiated – says Tania – in my village they say that I am a bad guy. It was my dad who insisted and took me to the divorceist, fortunately”. “My husband’s mother obviously didn’t want him, he didn’t want him and so I took him to a lawyer. And a month ago I had a divorce. I thought it was over, but recently I found him in my house” . In the meantime, Tania has returned to her parents. Some time ago, when the girl was still living with her husband, the police also arrived, called by the neighbors for screams after yet another quarrel between the two. “The cops asked me for the date of the wedding, but they quickly realized it was an arranged marriage. So they left me a phone number to call them in case of need.” In the meantime, the young woman turned to some friends, who sent her to the President of Mete Onlus, Giorgia Butera, of Palermo, who has been dealing with abused women and ‘child brides’ for years. He has also done several international campaigns. “The intervention to protect child brides and young girls forced into forced unions, with the consequence of becoming sex slaves, was born in 2014. I have always observed the world, and when within foreign communities I faced the fight against the violence of generally, for the immediate associative network there was talk of forced marriages – says Giorgia Butera to Adnkronos – Ideology and concreteness, I have / we have never stopped talking about early and forced marriages, the message must always be spread. The help offered finds an answer . It is a discreet and hidden work. Work and commitment repaid by girls who manage to rebel, trusting people like us, committed to human protection and freedom “. But today how are Tania’s relations with her father? “They have improved, even if he is not well for the accident he had. But just yesterday talking about the case of Saman he got very angry because he said: ‘How can a mother have a daughter killed? It’s not possible’. he would never have done it to me. My father never hurt me, but in Pakistan the real danger is the relatives … “. Just like in the case of Saman. “In my opinion Saman was killed, but not by her parents, they certainly asked their brothers. Because in Pakistan if the parent kills the daughter, she loses her reputation, but if a relative does it, nothing happens. My uncle too. maternal, who lives in Pakistan, when I got divorced, had a bad reaction. ” Tania has a 24-year-old sister, and three brothers. “After what my parents did with me – she says – they don’t impose anything on my sister, they also made her decide on the choice of her boyfriend. And now my sister is dating a boy. A Pakistani, but she chose him. Ed is happy…”. (by Elvira Terranova)