A local council of elders in Jacobabad, Pakistan, ordered Muhammad Hashim Khoso to give away his two daughters, 8-year-old Fehmida and 2-year-old Sughra, and to pay a $12,500 fine in February.

The council, known as a jirga, called for the transaction after the elders found Hashim’s brother guilty of committing adultery with a married woman. Hashim’s daughters would be given as compensation to two men from the woman’s family.

“I am a poor laborer,” Hashim said. “I was about to lose my daughters for no fault of mine. It was my brother’s case, and the jirga asked me to pay [the] fine because he was having an affair with a married woman.”