Misbah Iram Ahmed Rana (Urdu: مصباح ارم احمد رانا) (born July 1994), also known as Molly Campbell, is a Scottish woman of mixed Scottish-Pakistani heritage who was at the centre of an alleged child abduction case in August 2006.
Early life
Misbah/Molly was born in Glasgow, Scotland to Pakistani father Sajad Ahmed Rana (born 1960), and Scottish mother, Louise (born 1968), and has two elder brothers Omar (born 1986) and Adam (born 1990), an elder sister Tahmina (born 1988). She also has a half-sister Rachel (born 2006), her mother's child with her new partner Kenny Campbell, and two other younger half-sisters who are her father's children with his new wife. Misbah had acquired the surname Campbell from the man with whom her mother lived in Stornoway.
Her parents married in Muslim tradition in 1984, after her mother converted to Islam. Growing up, the children were raised within the Muslim faith until discontent became apparent between Sajad and Louise. They eventually divorced in 2001, when Misbah was seven, and all four Rana children initially stayed with their father, as requested by their mother. He eventually relocated back to his homeland of Pakistan; the children accompanied him for the first few months before returning to their mother in Scotland. In 2005, Tahmina and Adam chose to return to Pakistan to live with their father while Misbah remained in her mother's custody. Her elder brother Omar continues to live in Glasgow, where he is studying. Misbah and her mother then moved from Glasgow to Stranraer, a decision Louise Campbell claims was motivated by threats allegedly made by her former husband. In November 2005 they moved to Stornoway.
2006-
On 25 August 2006, Molly was met by her sister Tahmina outside the gates of her high school. The sisters then met up with their father, who had been staying in a hotel on the Western Isles, and took a flight from Stornoway to Glasgow before boarding a flight to Lahore, Pakistan. By the time her mother realised what had happened, they were already on their way to Pakistan.
The following day, after Interpol launched a search for the missing twelve-year-old, Louise Campbell made an emotional plea to the media, claiming her former husband had abducted Misbah, against the child's wishes, with the intent to marry her off to a twenty-five-year-old cousin. (Child marriage and forced marriage are issues that activists such as Southall Black Sisters claim are a significant problem among British Asians; marriage between cousins is culturally encouraged in those communities.) This allegation has been denied by Misbah, her father and prominent members of the Pakistani community in Scotland, including Bashir Maan.
Abduction or runaway? Within days of sparking international fears for her safety, Misbah was discovered at her father's house, located in a wealthy suburb of Lahore, Pakistan. On 28 August, Scottish MP Mohammed Sarwar, who was friends with Sajad Rana, flew to Pakistan to mediate with the family.
Four days later, a press conference was held, attended by Misbah and her father where the girl vehemently denied the idea she was to be made a child bride and instead claimed she begged her father to take her to Pakistan, where she wanted to live with him and her siblings. Within hours, Louise Campbell's solicitors in Scotland insisted legal action was still underway to bring the child back to Britain and in her mother's custody but, in retaliation, Sajad said he was preparing to go before a Pakistani court to ask for her legal guardianship. And on 2 September, he was awarded temporary custody of Misbah after she signed a statement, saying she arrived in Pakistan from Scotland on 26 August 2006 under her own free will, although he had to surrender her passport to ensure he could not take her out of the High Court's jurisdiction.
Campbell lodged a petition at the Lahore court alleging the child was illegally taken to Pakistan by her ex-husband and eldest daughter and activated the protocol that any custody case should be held in Scotland. This is in light of the 2003 Judicial Protocol signed by British and Pakistani judiciary officials in agreement that any abducted child should be returned to the country usually resided in and the court of that country should decide which parent the child should live with.