A 37-year-old Pakistani citizen was arrested by the police of the Matera Flying Squad on charges of aggravated domestic abuse and attempted coercion into marriage to his minor daughter.
The investigation was launched after the girl went to the emergency room last April with several bruises on her body. According to the reconstruction of the agents, the young woman had long been a victim of harassment by her father, who subjected her to constant psychological and physical pressure to force her to marry a cousin of hers in Pakistan, with whom she had agreed on a marriage.
The man controlled her, forbade her from seeing friends, going out and took away her cell phone to prevent her from communicating. On the evening of April 15, he beat her violently with the handle of a broom after discovering that she was chatting with a boy and to punish her he had rudely cut her long hair. The girl had managed to escape her father’s violence only by pretending to faint.
The next day, in the hospital, the parent had tried to induce the daughter to lie about her injuries, forcing her to declare that she had fallen from her bicycle and finally to abandon the medical center, which the young woman actually did.
However, the episode was reported to the Police thanks to the intervention of an operator from OSCAD (Observatory for Security against Discriminatory Acts) during an awareness-raising initiative in schools.
In fact, in Matera, in those days, the State Police truck was stationed, engaged in the traveling campaign “A social life” aimed at students and teachers of secondary schools. During the initiative, on a confidential basis, an agent had been informed of what had happened to the little girl just the day before.
Following the investigations by the Flying Squad, the man was arrested and taken to prison and the young woman to social services as required by the “Red Code”.
After spending a few months in prison, the man has currently been placed under house arrest.
