Islamabad, June 18 (IANS) The disappearance of a 14-year-old Christian girl has once again exposed the brutal machinery of forced conversion and coerced marriage in Pakistan. Forced conversions and coerced marriage of minority women and girls have emerged as one of the most disturbing cases of gender-based violence and religious discrimination in Pakistan, a report has detailed.
Nisha Bibi, who worked as a domestic helper, was taken by a married Muslim man who exploited her medical condition and forcibly converted her to Islam and married her. Nisha Bibi’s father, Abbas Masih, who is a daily wage labourer, was shocked after police showed him documents claiming that she had converted months earlier and married as per her own choice, according to a report in European Times.
He said, “We were shocked to see an alleged conversion certificate and marriage documents presented as proof,” stressing that fabrications were designed to protect the perpetrator from prosecution. A statement was also submitted before a magistrate, which alleged that she was 18 years old and was requesting for protection from her family.
“In reality, religion was being weaponised to evade accountability, and a vulnerable child was being erased. Forced conversions and coerced marriages of minority women and girls in Pakistan have become one of the most disturbing intersections of gender‑based violence and religious discrimination,” a report in European Times mentioned.
“The victims are overwhelmingly minors, between 12 and 17 years old, abducted, threatened, and forced into marriages that are later legitimised through fabricated conversion certificates. In Pakistan today, being born female and non‑Muslim often means being stripped of autonomy, identity, and legal protection,” it added.
In a similar incident that occurred in April, Jia Liaqat (16), a Christian girl, was kidnapped while her parents worked in the fields. A few weeks later, Jia Liaqat’s father received a WhatsApp call from a man in Dubai, who warned him against following the case. Police did not act in the case and Jia was allegedly married online to a Muslim man in the UAE, showcasing the same pattern: cross‑border manipulation, local complicity, and police inaction.
“These cases reveal a deliberate pattern: abduction, coercion, fabricated documentation, and judicial validation. Religious conversion is exploited as a cover for sexual violence, while police and courts collude whether through negligence or complicity to shield perpetrators. The trafficking pipeline is clear: abducted girls are raped, declared ‘converted,’ and married to their captors, cementing their erasure from their communities,” a report in European Times stated.
In April, bishops in Pakistan 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.
–IANS
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