On Monday (January 16), experts at the United Nations expressed grave concern about the alarming rise in kidnappings, coerced marriages, and forced conversions of minor girls belonging to religious minority communities in Pakistan.
The experts included Tomoya Obokata, Mama Fatima Singhateh, Reem Alsalem, Nazila Ghanea, Fernand de Varennes, Siobhán Mullally, Dorothy Estrada-Tanck, Ivana Radačić, Elizabeth Broderick, Meskerem Geset Techane and Melissa Upreti.
They called for immediate action to ensure justice for the underage victims. The UN experts emphasised, “We urge the Government to take immediate steps to prevent and thoroughly investigate these acts objectively and in line with domestic legislation and international human rights commitments.”
They added, “Perpetrators must be held fully accountable…We are deeply troubled to hear that girls as young as 13 are being kidnapped from their families, trafficked to locations far from their homes, made to marry men sometimes twice their age, and coerced to convert to Islam, all in violation of international human rights law.”
“We are very concerned that such marriages and conversions take place under threat of violence to these girls and women or their families,” the UN experts pointed out. They also expressed concern about the “lack of access to justice for victims and their families.”
They also questioned the complicity of the Pakistani justice system and security forces in facilitating the abductions and forced conversions of minor girls. “Family members say that victims’ complaints are rarely taken seriously by the police, either refusing to register these reports or arguing that no crime has been committed by labelling these abductions as love marriages,” the experts stated.
They further added, “Abductors force their victims to sign documents which falsely attest to their being of legal age for marriage as well as marrying and converting of free will. These documents are cited by the police as evidence that no crime has occurred.”
“Pakistani authorities must adopt and enforce legislation prohibiting forced conversions, forced and child marriages, kidnapping, and trafficking, and abide by their international human rights commitments to combat slavery and human trafficking and uphold the rights of women and children,” the UN experts concluded.
Pakistan: Minor Hindu girl abducted, forcibly converted to Islam and married off to Shaukat
In October last year, a 14-year-old Hindu girl was forcefully married to a Muslim man after converting to Islam as per a report by FirstPost.
The incident took place in the Islamkot tehsil in the Tharparkar district in Sindh, Pakistan. According to the report, the teenage girl was abducted from the village.
A cleric named Samaru Pir Jan Sirhandi thereafter facilitated the forced conversion, after which she was forcefully married to her abductor Shaukat, son of Murad Hanhrjo, her family members alleged. Hindus in Pakistan live in perpetual fear of persecution at the hands of the Muslim majority.
The cases of abduction, forced conversion to Islam and marriage with the abductor who is an older Muslim man, is a crimes prevalent in the Sindh province of Pakistan where underage Hindu girls from poor families are the victims. Mian Mithoo, an influential and powerful cleric of the Barachundi mosque in Sindh’s Bahawalpur is said to be the person who organises and facilitates the forced conversions. The courts then hold the forced Islamic marriage valid and make the minor girls live with the abductor, citing strict Sharia laws.