{"id":60630,"date":"2023-12-19T15:00:16","date_gmt":"2023-12-19T06:00:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/global-development\/2023\/dec\/19\/womens-ordeal-under-pakistan-ghag-illegal-forced-marriage-custom"},"modified":"2023-12-19T15:00:16","modified_gmt":"2023-12-19T06:00:16","slug":"im-not-a-toy-how-an-antiquated-tradition-of-forced-marriage-wrecked-one-girls-life","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/?p=60630","title":{"rendered":"\u2018I\u2019m not a toy\u2019: how an antiquated tradition of forced marriage wrecked one girl\u2019s life"},"content":{"rendered":"

Despite a ban on \u2018ghag\u2019 forced marriages, a man laid claim to Inteha when she was 12 years old. Now she lives in fear as her family fights for her right to marry the man of her choice<\/p>\n

Inteha Bibi\u2019s happiest moment was her engagement last year. Everyone in the family celebrated. Bibi, 25, believed she had not only found a perfect match but also freedom from a centuries-old custom of north-west Pakistan that had hung over her head since she was 12.<\/p>\n

But within months, her fiance and his family had broken off the engagement. The outdated and illegal custom, known as ghag<\/a><\/em> \u2013 a Pashto word meaning proclamation<\/a> that allows another man to forcibly claim a woman as his intended wife \u2013 had reared its head.<\/p>\n

Continue reading…<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Despite a ban on \u2018ghag\u2019 forced marriages, a man laid claim to Inteha when she was 12 years old. Now she lives in fear as her family fights for her right to marry the man of her choiceInteha Bibi\u2019s happiest moment was her engagement last year. Everyone …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":425,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"sns_share_botton_hide":"","vkExUnit_sns_title":"","_vk_print_noindex":"","sitemap_hide":"","_veu_custom_css":"","veu_display_promotion_alert":"","vkexunit_cta_each_option":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1908,59,60,79,61,281,617,42],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-60630","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-forced-marriage","category-global-development","category-pakistan","category-society","category-south-and-central-asia","category-women","category-womens-rights-and-gender-equality","category-world-news"],"aioseo_notices":[],"veu_head_title_object":{"title":"","add_site_title":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60630","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/425"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=60630"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60630\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":60631,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60630\/revisions\/60631"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=60630"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=60630"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=60630"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}