A village council in Pakistan ordered a nine-year-old girl to marry a man to settle a dispute between their families over an alleged kidnapping.
Officials in Kot Mubarak forced the child to wed the man after his uncle claimed her family had abducted his wife and children.
Police have arrested four people over the wedding and are searching for up to a dozen others, including the cleric who conducted the ceremony and the leader of the council, in the Dera Ghazi Khan district of Punjab, in eastern Pakistan.
The council was called on to settle the dispute after Budha Khan complained the girl's uncle Haji Muhammad kidnapped his three children and their mother on 6 July, The Express Tribune reported.
Authorities decided the nine-year-old must wed Mr Khan's nephew under the cultural custom of vani, in which a young girl is forcibly married as a part of a punishment for a crime committed by her male relatives.
The practice was banned in 2005 but still continues illegally in parts of Pakistan.
Kot Mubarak's council also ordered that Mr Khan's children should be returned to him but said his wife should live with her father.
Family members from each side of the dispute were involved in the vani proceedings, according to the newspaper.
Police are raiding houses in a bid to round up those who took part.
