French Expatriate Rescued After 12 Years of Abuse in Pakistan

Wed Jun 24 2026 17:45:13 GMT+0000 (Coordinated Universal Time)

A French woman and her children were freed from a decades‑long domestic abuse regime in Pakistan, sparking discussion on migrant safety and legal protection.

Sylvie Yasmina, a 54‑year‑old French national, and her five children were discovered living in a cramped, dilapidated room with bruises after being held captive by their husband for over a decade. The abuser, a Pakistani man previously living illegally in Australia, had imprisoned the family since their 2014 move to rural Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. A son’s attempt to report the abuse triggered a police raid that led to Yasmina’s rescue and relocation to a women’s shelter in Peshawar. Authorities plan to send the family back to France and are investigating the husband’s background. The case highlights urgent gaps in protection for foreign residents and the need for international cooperation in addressing domestic violence.

Police in Pakistan have arrested a man who allegedly held his wife and children captive at home and abused them for more than a decade.

His wife, a French national named Sylvie Yasmina, says the husband assaulted the family physically and mentally on a daily basis and described him as “very violent.” Local police told BBC Urdu that the abuse had effectively imprisoned the family since they moved to Pakistan in 2014.

One of their sons managed to sneak out to make a police report, which led to a raid of their house in Bara, a remote town in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province. Police found Yasmina and her five children in a cramped and “extremely dilapidated” room, with bruises all over their bodies.

Yasmina and her children have been taken to a women’s shelter in Peshawar. They plan to move back to France, police say.

The couple had married in 2003 and lived in Australia until 2014. Yasmina claims she has not had any communication with the outside world since then. She described being deprived of freedom and her husband’s daily beatings and pressures that ruined her and her children’s future.