Pakistan: Christian Girls Abducted, Raped, Forcibly Converted to Islam
The number of Pakistani Christian girls abducted, abused, and forcefully converted to Islam with the law’s consent is growing.
In January, the Christian Daily International-Morning Star News reported the following cases:
- On January 5, a married, 35-year-old Muslim neighbor of a 12-year-old Christian girl, Saba Shafique, abducted her in Punjab Province. He took her to another province, where he forcibly converted her to Islam and married her, her father said.
- On January 9, five Muslims abducted a 14-year-old Christian girl, Saneha Sharif, from outside her home in Punjab. Sharif Masih said he fears the kidnappers may try to forcibly convert his daughter to Islam and force her to marry one of the Muslim suspects.
- On January 20, three Muslims abducted a 12-year-old Christian girl, Ariha Gulzar, at gunpoint from her home in Punjab. They have threatened to sell her into sexual slavery, her parents said.
These are not isolated cases. Many Christian girls as young as 7 — primarily from poor families and those with physical disabilities — are kidnapped, forcibly married, sexually assaulted and forced to convert to Islam on the pain of death. Some are trafficked into slave labor and the sex trade. Christian and Hindu parents are getting increasingly fearful of allowing their daughters to walk alone outside. Perpetrators are increasingly supported by Islamic religious leaders and enjoy de facto impunity for their actions.
Many Christian families never see their girls again, the state authorities rarely take meaningful action to bring perpetrators to justice, and police are often biased, refusing to file reports from Christian families.
According to the 2024 Pakistan country report by Open Doors, a human rights organization, Christian persecution in the country comes from government officials, Islamic religious leaders, violent Islamic groups and revolutionaries or paramilitary groups, political parties, ideological pressure groups and normal citizens – in other words, almost the entire country.
Discrimination and challenges for Christians are prevalent at every government tier and even in secular environments, notes Open Doors. This is true for the army, the judicial and the administrative services as well (especially at the local level) although Christians continue to serve in these areas.
The Movement for Solidarity and Peace calculates that in Pakistan up to 1,000 young Christian and Hindu girls and young women aged between 12 and 25 are abducted by Muslim men every year. The research, which suggests that Christians make up 70 percent of these cases, found that the scale of the problem “is likely to be much greater as a number of the cases are never reported and do not progress through law enforcement and the legal systems”. Many of the girls suffer rape, forced prostitution, human trafficking and domestic abuse.
While all women are vulnerable to gender-based violence in Pakistan, women from Christian and Hindu minorities face overt and violent forms of persecution. According to Open Doors,
“The legal system repeatedly fails these young women … The psychological trauma and abuse continue even if a case is brought to bring back the girl. Many of them are forced to say they are over 18 years old or that they converted voluntarily…
“The challenges involved represent a huge emotional strain for the families who constantly fear retribution from the perpetrators and their supporters, as well as the reality that for most Christian girls a return to her family is near impossible.
Jubilee Campaign reported in a 2023 written statement to the UN Human Rights Council that in many cases, Christian girls are forcibly married to men who are twice their age or more, including those who are already married with children near the victim’s age.
For the small minority of rescued victims, the shame of abduction and rape places a shadow over their lives within Pakistan’s honor-based culture. Survivors show higher rates of PTSD, anxiety, depression, and detachment.
Meanwhile, it remains a great challenge to achieve equitable recognition of conversions. Converts from Islam will never be recognized officially, and they continue living as Muslims. However, the recognition of conversions to Islam from a Christian or Hindu background is swiftly accepted and the National Identity Card easily changed.
Christian women and girls are also at risk of sexual violence in the public sphere, including the workplace and schools. This is part of a wider attitude towards Christian girls and women: Muslim men often believe that Christian women and girls have loose morals and are easily available.
Many are house-maids or cleaners and are targeted for sexual exploitation. It is becoming normal to rape young Christian children. Reports revealed sexual assaults against a three-year old Christian girl by her Muslim teacher and an eight-year-old girl at the hands of her school principal in 2021.
Christian women and girls are also at risk of honor killings. It is estimated that around 1,000 women are killed annually in honor killings. This includes the case of 24-year old Sonia, from Rawalpindi, who was fatally shot in 2020 by a Muslim man for refusing to marry him.
Traveling within Pakistan is often limited for Christians and there are grave security risks connected with it:
“Even with the option of government security and support from the local bishop, it has been judged unwise to travel to certain parts of the country, such as Peshawar, with religious hatred cited as one of the causes for concern. For Christian women, especially those traveling on their own, the risks are especially acute, particularly in areas with strong Islamist influence where the notion of travel by unaccompanied females is anathema.”
The Pakistani media are routinely biased against Christians. For example, when a Muslim man is accused of abducting an underage Christian girl and forcing her to marry him, the standard editorial approach is to declare it a “love match” in which the girl is fully implicated. Such coverage will routinely fail to give consideration to the issue of her being under-age and the undue pressure likely applied by the so-called husband who is often decades older and has often acted without the consent of the individual’s parents and who in the West would be accused of pedophilia.
Most abduction cases do not get media coverage, and the victims suffer in silence, notes Open Doors.
Some of those incidents go unreported because the Christians involved choose not to speak about the resulting hostility. Doing so would expose them to more attacks. For example, if a family member is killed because of their faith, the survivors might decide to keep silent about the circumstances of the killing to avoid provoking any further attacks.
Other incidents go unreported and never reach the public consciousness because no one really knows about it; or the incident is simply not considered worth reporting; or media coverage is deliberately blocked or distorted; or media coverage is not deliberately blocked, but the information somehow gets lost; or the incidents are deliberately not reported widely for security reasons (e.g. for the protection of local church leaders).
Pakistan was part of India, and a majority-Hindu nation before the Islamization that started in the seventh century with the invading Muslim armies. Today, Pakistan is a chilling example of how non-Muslim girls and women are treated. Their liberty and dignity are confiscated. They live in fear and pain under Islamic rule. Democracies should take note of Pakistan and always do what is necessary to preserve their cultural identity, their sovereignty and freedom. They should never allow Islamists the right to impose their mores and laws. Pakistan, a hell on earth for non-Muslim women, is already a regressive enough example.
Uzay Bulut is a Turkey-born journalist formerly based in Ankara.
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