OVERVIEW
is permissible after a girl’s Àrst period. Evidence of pressure from Islamist mobs, known to pack court rooms, is also reported to have swayed justices, especially in lower courts. Against a backdrop of widespread corruption, governments’ willingness to do justice for victims and take preventative steps to tackle sexual violence and religious persecution of faith minorities has repeatedly been called into question by observers. While the UK government recognized that “Coptic Christian women in Egypt face difÀculties additional to other women in the form of... disappearances, forced abductions and forced conversions” 28 the Egyptian government has by contrast been described as dismissive of the problem. Regime spokespersons have claimed that the majority of cases do not relate to human rights violations and are to be seen only as involving young women eloping with someone from another religion. 29 There are signs, however, in countries where Christian women and girls suffer endemic sexual violence and religious persecution, that governments are starting to take steps to address the problem. In March 2021, the government in Nigeria announced specialist courts and judicial divisions to deal with acts of sexual violence, in particular those committed by extremists. 30 The previous November, Prime Minister Imran Khan’s government in Pakistan launched an investigation into forced marriage and conversion of girls and young women, looking at reports of injustice on a “case by case” 31 bases. However, it is doubtful whether such initiatives will meaningfully address a problem that, as this report has sought to show, is so institutionalized, affecting the courts and the police, and one that is so deeply rooted in society. The concern is that such measures are window-dressing for the West, designed to assuage the concerns of governments anxious about the moral
example, a former gang member reportedly described how SalaÀst militants had funded kidnappers’ targeting of Coptic girls and young women, a process he said was aided and abetted by police ofÀcers. It was alleged that the police had conspired by reporting the female Christians as missing rather than abducted. In Pakistan, the police and court system are frequently accused of colluding with perpetrators. Reporting on a series of abductions, forced marriages and conversions of Christian girls as young as six, a report from the Gatestone Institute concluded that “everyone, including local police, court ofÀcials and Islamic clerics seem bent on facilitating this human rights tragedy.” 24 The courts and judicial system are also blamed for being biased against Christians, frequently delivering justice skewed to protecting the interests of perpetrators and preventing them being successfully prosecuted. The essence of this problem is a clash of cultures and corresponding legal systems, with ofÀcial state legislation, allegedly secular in outlook, frequently being trumped by other codes of practice, informed by religious precepts and weighted to favour the non-Christian party. Central to this are tribal, cultural and religious norms, including traditional Shari‘a interpretations which protect child marriage. In Nigeria, for example, the federal Child Rights Act bans marriage or betrothal for those under the age of 18 but critically it has not been enacted in 11 of the country’s 36 states where local state law or other legislation takes precedence. 25 In Pakistan, the Child Marriage Restraint Act of 1929, as amended by the Muslim Family Laws Ordinance of 1961, imposes a minimum age of 16 for would-be brides. 26 Calls to raise the bar to 18 were met with opposition by Islamist political parties. 27 However, this belies the degree to which courts set aside state legislation in favour of Islamic law, often on the pretext that the bride has converted to Islam, in wich marriage
10 | HEAR HER CRIES
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