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.
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.