Forced conversion of minor Hindu, Christian girls is unabated in Pakistan, says UN

Experts from the United Nations have expressed their dismay at forced conversions, sexual violence, abduction, and trafficking of minor Hindu and Christian girls in Pakistan. In a statement released on Thursday, April 11, in Geneva, the experts said: “Christian and Hindu girls remain particularly vulnerable to forced religious conversion, abduction, trafficking, child, early and forced marriage, domestic servitude, and sexual violence.”

Demanding protection of the law for these vulnerable sections who fall victim to Islamists, the experts further said: “The exposure of young women and girls belonging to religious minority communities to such heinous human rights violations and the impunity of such crimes can no longer be tolerated or justified.”  The Islamist perpetrators of such gross human rights violations were not at all held accountable, with the police often dismissing such crimes under the guise of “love marriages’’, the statement pointed out.

“A woman’s right to choose a spouse and freely enter into marriage is central to her life, dignity, and equality as a human being and must be protected and upheld by law,” the experts said. They stressed the need for provisions to invalidate, annul, or dissolve marriages contracted under duress, with due consideration for the women and girls concerned, and to ensure access to justice, remedy, protection, and adequate assistance for victims.

The police as also courts invoked Islamic religious laws to justify keeping their victims with their abductors rather than allowing them to return to their parents. The victim Hindu and Christian minor girls are subjected to forced marriages and religious conversions. The courts fail to come to their rescue and always end up validating the religious coercion and sexual violence, the experts said.

Quoting some specific examples, the UN statement pointed out that a Christian girl, Mishal Rasheed, was abducted at gunpoint from her home while she was getting ready to go to school in 2022. Rasheed was then sexually assaulted, forcibly converted to Islam, and then coerced to marry her abductor and rapist. Just a month ago, on March 13, 2024, a 13-year-old Christian girl was abducted, forcibly converted to Islam. She was also forced to marry her abductor, and her marriage certificate was falsified and recorded her age as 18.

The chair of the working group on discrimination against women and girls, Dorothy Estrada Tanck, and members of the working group — Claudia Flores, Ivana Krstic, Haina Lu, and Laura Nyirinkindi —  joined other experts in voicing concern on the situation. The experts included Tomoya Obokata,n, Siobhan Mullally; special rapporteur on minority issues, Nicolas Levrat and special rapporteur on freedom of religion or belief, Nazila Ghanea. The special rapporteurs are part of what is known as the Special Procedures of the UN Human Rights Council.

Notwithstanding the right of children to freedom of thought, conscience and religion in accordance with Article 14 of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, change of religion or belief in all circumstances must be free, without coercion and undue inducements, the experts said. “The Pakistani authorities must enact and rigorously enforce laws to ensure that marriages are contracted only with the free and full consent of the intended spouses, and that the minimum age for marriage is raised to 18, including for girls,” the experts said. “All women and girls must be treated without discrimination, including those belonging to the Christian and Hindu communities.”

They urged Pakistan to bring perpetrators to justice, enforce existing legal protections against child, early and forced marriage, abduction and trafficking of minority girls, and uphold the country’s international human rights obligations.