I Am A Daughter Of A Sold Mother
A personal account of generational wounds, entrenched customs, and the fight to end child marriage in Pakistan.
Peggy und Marco Lachmann-Anke | Pixabay My mother never called it a sale. But she never called it marriage either.
She was sixteen when her brother accepted a sum of money from a man more than three times her age. The transaction was quiet. No one called it trafficking. No one called it violence. The man was from another province, wore a clean shalwar kameez, and said he would feed her. She left the tribal village in silence, wearing red.
I am the child of that exchange. And for a long time, I didn’t know how to name what that made me.
I am a daughter of a sold mother
Issam Salem / Shutterstock
She came from a region where customs run deeper than constitutions. In her village in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, girls were taught how to knead dough, how to obey elders, and how to keep their voices low.
Laughter was not a right. My mother told me once that she laughed loudly at a cousin’s wedding, and her older brother beat her afterward. She never did it again.
When my grandfather died, her brother became head of the family. That’s when things moved faster. He sold my mother first. Then, years later, he sold each of his six daughters. Two of them were sold twice, once as brides, again as discarded wives married off again for new sums.
This wasn’t scandalous. This was survival. This was what everyone around us understood as normal.
They call it child marriage
They call it child marriage, but in most reports, that truth stays between the lines.
The Child Marriage in Pakistan profile on the Child Marriage Data Portal, supported by UNICEF, reports that approximately 18% of girls ages 20–24 were married before age 18, and about 4% before age 15. The Pakistan Demographic and Health Survey (PDHS) 2017–18, as summarized by The State of Children in Pakistan, confirms that 3.6% of girls are married before 15, and 18.3% are married before 18.
And then there are the customs — names that sound like traditions but act like traps.
Vani or Swara: Marrying a girl to settle a dispute, which is usually between feuding families. Jirga (a traditional assembly of tribal elders that settles disputes) in the area decides. Not the girl.
Watta Satta: Added to the above is Watta Satta; here, the daughter is married on the condition that her family gets a bride in exchange. This is no courtship but barter.
The law says these practices are illegal. But custom often runs ahead of law, especially in the darker corners of the country where state writ is thin, and men still gather to decide women’s fates over tea.
Finally, a law against child marriage — but is it enough?
In May 2025, Pakistan’s Senate passed a historic bill, raising the legal marriage age to 18 for both boys and girls, applicable within Islamabad’s jurisdiction. The new law has made child marriage a criminal offense carrying a penalty of up to seven years’ imprisonment. The law recognizes marital intimacy with a minor as statutory assault and provides protection extended to whistleblowers.
It was a hopeful moment. But it came with resistance.
She was sixteen when her brother accepted a sum of money from a man more than three times her age. The transaction was quiet. No one called it trafficking. No one called it violence.
The Council of Islamic Ideology issued a public denunciation of the bill, labeling it un-Islamic and against cultural values. In tribal areas where Jirga systems continue to function alongside the judiciary, implementation is nearly impossible. With fake birth certificates, age is just another negotiable fact.
For girls like my mother, laws like this came decades too late. And for many girls today, they remain only words, ink without weight.
Still, some women do not give up
Organizations like the Aurat Foundation, Blue Veins, and Sahil have worked for years to expose underage marriages, provide shelters to runaway girls, and push legal reforms. Many of these activists work under threat. They are called un-Islamic. They are accused of corrupting girls. But they continue.
Some travel village to village, speaking to girls in low voices. Some sit in parliament and try to rewrite the code. Some write reports no one wants to read, filled with the stories of thirteen-year-olds with swollen stomachs and sunken eyes.
Change, in places like these, is never fast. But it is not absent either.
I was not sold. My mother never allowed that. She was bruised by silence, but she broke the pattern with me. She raised me with a voice, and I learned how to use it.
Still, I carry the legacy. In my bones, there is knowledge I didn’t ask for. That a girl’s worth can be counted in bills. That family can betray you in the name of duty. That sometimes survival looks like obedience. But also, that silence can end.
I am a daughter of a sold mother. I write this so that one day, some girl in a village I will never visit might read it and know this: you are not merchandise. You are not a debt to be paid. Your life is not collateral.
Let them call it custom. Let them call it honor. I will call it what it is. And I will not whisper.
Sexual abuse is very common. RAINN reports that every 68 seconds, an American is a victim of sexual violence. Females are far more likely to be abused and assaulted, and 90% of victims who are adults are women. Anyone affected by sexual assault can find support on the National Sexual Assault Hotline, a safe, confidential service. Contact The Hotline or call 800-656-HOPE (4673) to be connected with a trained staff member.
Ume Zainab is a writer and literature student whose work explores motherhood, womanhood, and social justice. Her essays have been featured on Medium, where she writes about identity, resilience, and generational stories.
