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PAKISTAN

Girls are at risk of abduction in parts of Pakistan.

The abduction, forced marriage and conversion of Christian girls and women is endemic in Pakistan. While there is no consensus on the precise scale of the problem, research clearly reveals the high incidence rate. The Movement for Solidarity and Peace calculated in 2014 that every year up to 1,000 young Christian and Hindu women and girls aged between 12 and 25 are abducted and forced to convert to Islam. Of that number, almost 70 percent were reported to be Christian. 110 Other research paints an even more dire picture. In April 2019, the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP), a national NGO, reported that in the previous year 1,000 cases of forced conversion of Christian and Hindu women had taken place in Sindh Province alone. 111 As the director of the country’s Catholic Centre for Justice and Peace Naem Gill pointed out, the exact number of forced conversions and forced marriages in Pakistan is “very difÀcult to gather” as “the majority of cases are not reported as most of the victims are poor

and vulnerable.” 112 Indeed, studies show widespread under-reporting of cases. Drivers include a wish to avoid social shame and the threat of retaliation from abductors and accomplices. Many minority communities exist as a feudal underclass and they are unwilling ― or unable ― to articulate their rights in the face of repression from the majority group. Indications suggest abductions and forced conversions are getting worse. According to Pakistan’s Centre for Social Justice, 162 questionable conversions were reported in the media after 2012, of which 49 took place in 2019 alone. 113 Nearly half of these were minors, some as young as 11. Increased reporting of incidents and growing international concern prompted Prime Minister Imran Khan’s government in November 2020 to launch an investigation on “a case-by-case basis.” 114 The stated objective was “to Ànd reasons for the issue.”

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