The late 40-year-old Sakina Muhammad Jan was found guilty of forcing Ruqia Haidari to wed 26-year-old Mohammad Ali Halimi in 2019 in exchange for a meager sum of money.
Halimi killed his new spouse six weeks after the wedding; he is currently serving a life sentence for this crime.
Jan, who entered a not guilty plea, was given a minimum one-year jail sentence on Monday for what the judge described as the “intolerable pressure” she had put on her daughter.
Australia enacted rules requiring forced marriages in 2013, with a potential sentence of seven years in prison. Although there are several instances that are still pending, Jan is the first to receive a sentence for the offense.
Attorneys for Jan, an Afghan Hazara refugee who moved to a rural area of Victoria in 2013 with her five children after fleeing Taliban persecution, have stated that although she continues to assert her innocence, Jan experiences ongoing “grief” over her daughter’s death.
According to testimony given during the trial, Haidari was initially coerced into an unauthorized religious marriage at the age of 15, which ended after two years. She stated that she had no intention of being married again until she was 27 or 28.
