17-year-old girl forced to marry six times

Married six times in the past six years.

This was what happened to a 17-year-old girl from Hafeezbabanagar, India who was forcibly married off by her parents, reported Malaysian Nanban.

The girl was married off by her father, Mohammed Akhbar who owned a pawnshop, together with the help of his third wide Niloufer, sister Mehrun-nisa and a marriage broker for Rs30,000 (RM1,600) to a man named Basheer in 2012.

Three months later, Basher abandoned her, and girl was married off to a London-based man in Pune for RS30,000 (RM1,600).

Her third and fourth marriage last year were in Mumbai to Saudi sheikhs for amounts ranging from Rs 50,000 (RM2,668) to Rs1 lakh (RM5,337) where the victim spent three months with each of her exploiters.

Her fifth marriage was in Hyderabad to a Bahrain national for the sum of Rs1 lakh (RM5,337).

On February 14, the girl was married off to a 50-year old man from Sudan, but managed to escape and approached the Hyderabad police with the help of a representative from a non-governmental organization on Wednesday.

According to The Times of India the qazi who performed the latest marriage of the 17-year-old girl is on the run.

This epidemic of buying young brides from poverty-stricken families is not only restricted to nationals of Arab countries, but the average Indian man too.

It also reported that this was not a one-off case as several Indian nationals are paying money to poor families to enter into ‘contract marriages’ with ‘good looking girls’.

Areas such as Talabakata, Vattepally, Nawabsabkunta, Amannagar, Shaheennagar and Yakutpura are some of the areas from where thousands of girls have been married off on contract basis, the portals sources said.

For many of these girls, the future is dire, with nowhere to go- many of these girls decide to end the agony and the shame by committing suicide.