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PAKISTAN CASE STUDIES

FARAH SHAHEEN

Aged just 12, Christian girl Farah Shaheen, from Faisalabad, was abducted, forcibly married and converted. During five months of sexual enslavement, she was shackled and forced to work long hours cleaning animal dung in her abductor’s yard.

Disaster struck on June 25, 2020, when Farah Shaheen was at home in Faisalabad with her grandfather, her three brothers and two sisters. That day, there was a knock on the door. When her grandfather opened it, three men burst in, grabbed Farah and forced her into a van. Farah’s anxious family were told she was now married to a man named Khizar Amad Ali (Hayat) and had converted to Islam. Farah herself later told the BBC: “I was chained most of the time… It was terrible. They put chains on my ankles and tied me with a rope. I tried to cut the rope and get the chains off but I couldn’t manage it. I prayed every night, saying: ‘God please help me’.” 118 Her father, Asif Masih, who was at work at the time of her abduction, told ACN “Farah has told me she was treated as a slave… She was forced to work all day, cleaning Àlth in a cattle yard.” 119

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