Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan has ordered an investigation into the forced conversion of women and girls from the country’s religious minorities, drawing praise from Christian aid groups.
Christian Concern
International Christian Concern, a group that advocates for persecuted Christians, said December 3 that many of the victims of forced marriages in Pakistan are minors, and that sexual assaults and fraudulent marriages are used by perpetrators to entrap victims, with authorities often complicit.
Tahir Mehmood Ashrafi, the Pakistani Prime Minister’s Special Representative on Religious Harmony, stated at a joint press conference that Mr Kahn had “ordered an investigation on a case-by-case basis of incidents of forced conversions of minor girls belonging to minority communities, particularly Christian and Hindu, to find reasons for this issue.”
ICC cited a 2014 study by the Movement for Solidarity and Peace Pakistan, which found that an estimated 1,000 Christian and Hindu women are abducted, forcefully married, and forcefully converted in Pakistan every year.
In a high-profile case this fall, a 44-year-old man kidnapped Arzoo Raja, a 13-year-old Catholic girl from Karachi, before forcing her to convert to Islam and marrying her.
Illegal
Child marriage is technically illegal in Pakistan, but courts typically do not enforce these laws. Sharia, which is used in some judicial decisions in Pakistan, permits a child to be married after her first menstrual period. Pakistan’s state religion is Islam.
Ali Azhar kidnapped Raja in broad daylight October 13. Raja’s parents were informed days later by the police that their daughter had converted to Islam and had married Azhar, allegedly of her own free will.
Two weeks after her abduction, on October 27, the Sindh High Court, based on statements the girl gave saying she was 18, ruled the marriage was valid and that Azhar would not be arrested.
The High Court reversed itself and ordered police to find the teenager November 2, the BBC reported. She was recovered later that day and Azhar has subsequently been charged with rape.