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.
Arranged marriages usually come with all kinds of sexist norms the women are expected to follow. It’s normalized when it shouldn’t be.