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Every year up to 1,000 young Christian and Hindu women and girls aged between 12 and 25 are abducted and forced to convert...
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In search of an explanation, women’s rights organizations and religious persecution NGOs
Amid growing concern about a spate in abductions of minority faith girls, Church leaders were disappointed in July 2021 when reports emerged that the Supreme Court of Pakistan had refused a request to intervene. Supreme Court Justice Mushir Alam was said to have rejected an appeal by Church of Pakistan Bishop Azad Marshall for a constitutional petition to protect Christian girls from forced conversion and forced marriage. In his response, Bishop Marshall, President of the National Council of Churches in Pakistan, said: “We had pinned our hopes on the Supreme Court for addressing this long-standing grievance of the Pakistani Christians,” adding that he was “saddened” by the decision. 117
have highlighted problems in the police and courts in both reporting cases and carrying out justice. The Child Marriage Restraint Act 1929 sets the minimum age at 16 for women and 18 for men. 115 In 2019, the Senate passed an amendment to the act raising the minimum age for women so that it is in line with that of men. But religious political parties such as Ulema-e-Islam (JUI-F) and Jamaat-e-Islami claimed the proposed legislation was anti-Islamic and requested it be discussed by the Islamic Ideology Council. 116 This points to a fundamental Áaw in the justice system whereby often judges and magistrates sanction marriage provided the girl has had her Àrst period. In this, the justices reÁect legal precedents based on the HanaÀ school of Shari‘a jurisprudence which predominates in Pakistan.
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