Islamabad, April 9 (IANS) Bishops in Pakistan have expressed concern after the Federal Constitutional Court upheld the marriage of a Christian minor. The Pakistan Catholic Bishops’ Conference (PCBC) stated that the courts are not consistently applying laws that ban marriage under the age of 18 years, terming this selective implementation of legislation deeply troubling, a report has stated.
PCBC President Bishop Samson Shukardin stated that cases involving abducted Christian girls are being adjudicated inconsistently with the law. In a separate ‘Statement of Protest and Urgent Denial’, Catholic Archbishop Khalid Rehmat OFM Cap of Lahore expressed displeasure over court’s decision in a case involving Christian girl, according to a report in Eurasia Review.
The minority community expressed outrage after a two-member bench of the Pakistan’s Federal Constitutional Court on March 25 declared the marriage between Christian girl, Maria Bibi and Muslim man, Sheheryar Ahmed, to be valid. The court rejected a petition filed by Bibi’s father, Shahbaz Masih, who said that his daughter, who was around 13 years old was unlawfully detained in July 2025. The court stated that while the law penalises underage marriage, however, these marriages are not considered invalid.
On April 5, Christians in Pakistan, while celebrating Easter, offered prayers for the protection of Christian girls from kidnapping, forced conversion, and forced marriage. These prayers were made after a recent court judgement upheld the marriage of a minor Christian girl.
According to the Eurasia Review report, since the court’s verdict on March 25, Christians in Pakistan have held protests against the judgement which upheld the marriage of a minor Christian girl to a Muslim man. Community leaders have stressed that the decision could encourage more cases involving the kidnapping of Christian and Hindu girls, forced conversions, and coerced marriages.
On April 4, more than 200 Christians participated in a protest rally, organised by the Catholic Church’s human rights body, the National Commission for Justice and Peace (NCJP) and led by Bishop Simon Shukardeen, in Pakistan’s Hyderabad.
“Christian groups argue that this interpretation effectively validates child marriage, which they say contradicts Pakistani law, moral values, and international human rights standards. They view the ruling as reflective of a conservative judicial approach. The verdict has drawn not only domestic criticism but also international concern. UK parliamentarians have expressed alarm over the decision,” Aftab Alexander Mughal, Editor of Minority Concern Pakistan, and a former Executive Secretary of the Justice and Peace Commission of Pakistan, wrote in Eurasia Review.
“While respecting Pakistan’s judicial sovereignty, the All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) for Pakistani Minorities in the UK noted that the case fits into a broader and well-documented pattern involving the abduction, forced conversion, and marriage of girls from religious minority communities, particularly Christians and Hindus,” wrote Mughal.
–IANS
akl/as