Pakistani Swaps Daughter for Election Win

(Islamabad, Pakistan) It's illegal to treat women and girls as property but it happens all the time.

From the Indo-Asian News Service:

A candidate in Pakistan's Northwestern Frontier Province gave away his 11-year-old daughter to his opponent in exchange for latter's withdrawal from next week' local elections, a news report said Sunday.

Daily Times quoted an unnamed election official as saying that Ajoon, a resident of Kohistan district, more than 120 km northwest of here, made the offer considering his opponent Vilayat Noor politically stronger.

The two men were the only candidates for the post of nazim, or chief administrator.

Ajoon also paid his opponent 200,000 rupees (about $3,300) to sweeten the deal.

This incident exemplifies the ineffectiveness of the national government in establishing and enforcing laws on remote regions of mountainous northern Pakistan. The thousand-year-old religious and societal customs endure despite legislative actions taken in the capitol of Islamabad.