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He gestures that he is afraid Saima will leave him one day, and says that God will be unhappy if she does. They will marry when she reaches puberty.Haseena was 10 when Saima married her uncle Ramzan and her mother left to live with the new brides father. Asma already has been promised to her cousin, who is about 10.In Saimas world of crushing poverty, where centuries-old tribal traditions mix with religious beliefs, a crippling cycle traps even the perpetrators with a lifes burden: a father who longs for a son to help support his family; a wife who must provide that son; a daughter who must become a mother even when she is still a child.

She gestures as if breaking a twig to explain her troubled knee. Ramzan gestures that he wants Saima to take some medicine to help her get pregnant again. They cant be left at home alone for fear of unwanted ***ual activity - or worse, the daughter leaves home with a boy of her choice. Most of the translations are done by his 12-year-old niece, Haseena, Sabeels China Wholesale PVC Shower curtains daughter from the previous marriage."She says she accepted her husbands marriage to another woman; after all, its her fault he only has daughters.Like Ramzan, she can neither hear nor speak.Ramzan looks at Saima, her hair hidden beneath a sweeping shawl, her large brown eyes downcast."We gave a girl in this family for a girl in their family," Ahmed says.Haseena stayed in the house with her uncle and her elderly grandparents to cook, clean and keep Saima company. But the legal marrying age here is 16, and in a rare move, police did investigate Saimas marriage after they received a complaint, possibly from a relative involved in a dispute with her father. We would have no honor. She says girls are a headache after they reach puberty.The 36-year-old Ramzan smiles, eager to please, as he uses his fingers to count out her age when they married.Ramzans elderly parents live with him.Ramzan and Ahmed were jailed for a few days, but Saima testified in court that she was 16 and they were released.Ahmed sees the hand of God in his daughters marriage to a disabled man. But Sabeel wouldnt marry him until her brother had a wife to care for him.A girl may be given away to pay a debt or settle a dispute between feuding families. She wanted him to have a wife. He held his hand up just below his chest, showing how tall she was when they married.He says that the fact that Ramzan is nearly three times his daughters age is irrelevant. She might be married to a cousin to keep her dowry in the family or, as in this case, married for the prospect of a male heir.She would be a bride in exchange for a bride. But he knew his wife, Saima, was too young when she was given to him as a bride. His mother begs from morning until night, sometimes knocking on doors, other times parking herself in the middle of a dusty road, her hand outstretched for donations. His father rarely leaves his bed, saying he has trouble walking.Haseena recalls that Saima seemed so young, the family felt sorry for her. "That is our right.Jampur: Mohammad Ramzan can neither hear nor speak, and he has a childlike mind.

"When Saima married my uncle, my mother told me to leave school and be with Saima because she will be all alone at home," Haseena says. I myself allowed my husband to get a second wife," she says."No one had been willing to give their daughters to my brother," she says.Saima rarely looks in his direction but says she has no quarrel with him, nor does she plan to leave."It was by Gods will that he was chosen," he says. Her husband often reaches to touch the top of her head."I feel shame that I dont have a son. until 13, and then he stops and looks at her, points and nods several times. When they reach puberty quickly, we have to marry them," she says. Saima had gotten pregnant soon after she came to live with Ramzan but lost the child at five months. .Saima doesnt talk much."His sister and my father fell in love and they exchanged me," Saima says."At her age, she should have been playing."I didnt want to marry her so young. Both her hips and one knee have been broken. Her answers are short, and matter-of-fact. "Daughters are a burden, but the sons, they are the owners of the house.Saima says she understands her husbands gestures, but its hard to know. I said at the time, She is too young, but everyone said I must," he says through a series of gestures interpreted by those around him.."Back at Saimas old home, her 7-year-old sister, Asma, wanders around, shoeless, her hair matted with dirt and dust.Ramzan is quick to extend his hand to guests who enter through the torn and tattered curtain that hangs over the front door to his compound, tucked away in a narrow alley lined with open sewers.

They bite, Ahmed warns.His first wife, Saimas mother, had given him only daughters, and he hoped his second wife would give him a son. It mattered only that she had reached puberty when he arranged her marriage as an exchange: his daughter for Ramzans sister, whom he wanted to take as a second wife. "It was her fate."In deeply conservative regions such as this one in the south of Punjab province, the tribal practice of exchanging girls between families is so entrenched, it even has its own name in Urdu: Watta Satta, which means give and take. .Saimas mother, Janaat, agrees with marrying off her daughters early."She picks at the rope bed where she sits with Ramzan."Yes, I am afraid of my father, but it is his decision who I will marry and when."If it is not done, our society thinks parents have not fulfilled their religious obligation," says Faisal Tangwani, regional coordinator for the independent Human Rights Commission of Pakistan in nearby Multan. Outside, stray dogs roam in packs of three and four."That would be a shame for us. She even prepared Saimas wedding dinner. No. One, two, three .The girls father, Wazir Ahmed, says she was 14, not 13, but her age was beside the point."Ahmed sits inside the mud-walled compound where he lives now with his two wives.Her husbands new wife, Sabeel, says she agreed to marry Ahmed because of her brother. She says she told the authorities she was 16 to protect her father and husband.Many believe that their Islamic religion instructs fathers to marry off their daughters at puberty