Australia: Daughter killed after forced marriage, Afghan mother sentenced

50 years old Afghan Woman Australia I Algebra of happiness became the first person to be punished under the law against

He forced his daughter to marry, after which the 21-year-old girl was killed.

Sakina Muhammad Jan was found guilty of arranging the marriage of her 21-year-old daughter Ruqia Haidari to 26-year-old Muhammad Ali Halimi in 2019 for a small amount of money.

Six weeks after the wedding, Ali Halimi killed Ruqiya Haidari. He was eventually sentenced to life imprisonment for the crime.

On Monday, Sakina Muhammad Jan was sentenced to three years in prison under the law, becoming the first person to be jailed under the anti-forced marriage law.

Forced marriage laws were introduced in Australia in 2013, with a maximum sentence of seven years in prison.

The judge cited the woman as putting ‘unbearable pressure’ on the daughter before handing down the verdict.

Sakina Muhammad Jan pleaded not guilty and expressed regret over her daughter’s death and maintained her innocence during the trial. Prosecutors said John forced his daughter to marry due to social pressure.

Afghan Hazara refugee Sakina Muhammad Jan fled Taliban oppression and moved to Victoria with her five children in 2013. His youngest daughter Haidari was first forced into an informal religious marriage at the age of 15 which ended in divorce in her 20s.

The court was told that Raqia Haidari expressed her desire not to get married before the age of 27, 28. She wanted to focus on education and career. But in the eyes of the community, she had lost her importance due to divorce.

The court was told that this was the reason why the mother forced the daughter to remarry to restore the family’s reputation. The couple married in November 2019 in a religious ceremony without official registration. Sakina Muhammad Jan received 14 thousand dollars for the bride’s dowry on the wedding.

While the mother may have believed she was acting in the daughter’s best interest, the judge said she had repeatedly ignored Ruqiya Haidari’s wishes and abused her authority as a mother.

Sentencing, Judge Fran Dalziel said: ‘The girl wanted to get an education and get a job.’

Several people close to Muhammad Ali Halimi told the court that the girl said that she did not want to marry arranged by her family but wanted to get an education and marry for love.

During the sentencing of Ruqiya Haidari’s husband for the 2021 murder, a court in Western Australia was told that Muhammad Ali Halimi would torture and abuse his wife. They were forced to do household chores.

A day before his wife’s murder, Mohammad Ali Halimi sent a video to her family complaining that Ruqiya Haidari was sleeping late and was not ready to cook or clean the house. Haidari also rejected his attempts at intimacy.

“Haidari knew that if he did not marry, questions would be raised about him and the rest of the family,” the judge said.

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‘She was concerned not only about your anger but also about your respect in society.’

Judge Dalziel said Joan had ‘misused’ being a mother. She ‘loved and respected’ her daughter.

The judge said: ‘Even though you believed you were acting in her (daughter’s) best interests, in reality you were not.’

She added that she could also face deportation back to Afghanistan, which would be a “very serious thing” for a Hazara woman.

Sakina Muhammad Jan has been sentenced to three years in prison but can be released after 12 months to serve the rest of her sentence in the community. After being sentenced, he refused to accept the judge’s decision.

Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus said in a statement on Monday that forced marriage was Australia’s “most under-reported slavery-like crime”.

According to news agency AFP, 90 cases were reported to the federal police in 2022-23 alone.

‘Everyone in Australia should be free to decide who and when to marry.’