A mother has become the first person to be jailed under Australia’s forced marriage laws, for ordering her daughter to wed a man who would later murder the 21-year-old.
Sakina Muhammad Jan, who is in her late 40s, was found guilty of coercing Ruqia Haidari to marry 26-year-old Mohammad Ali Halimi in 2019, in exchange for a small payment.
Six weeks after the nuptials, Halimi killed his new bride - a crime for which he is now serving a life sentence.
On Monday, Jan - who pleaded not guilty - was sentenced to at least a year in jail, for what a judge called the “intolerable pressure” she had placed on her daughter.
That’s uncalled for. I posted my initial reaction, which was mostly misguided. I invested the time and effort to research and learn about the issue and mostly found answers to my questions.
I edited the post to clarify and avoid potentially misleading anyone who may have been of the same mindset. Simple as that. It would be far more dishonest to delete the post and act like I didn’t have questions about the situation. Instead, I did the work to learn a little and share that knowledge with others through a well-sourced response. If you don’t appreciate the effort, while investing none of your own, that’s your own business.
Also, it’s “Say your piece.”
It did cause an interesting discussion. I hadn’t even considered the distinction between forced and arranged. All in all, I appreciated the edit.