Abduction-Conversions of Young Girls and Legal Cover in Pakistan
By Naila Inayat
24
September 2020
Their names
change, their dreadful stories remain the same. It can be Kavita, Maria, Simran
or Huma, what bonds their doomed fates in Pakistan are their faiths. The forced
conversion of minor girls from minority communities to Islam is a pandemic that
won’t end on its own.
Representational
image | Wikimedia commons
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Prime
Minister Imran Khan can say Pakistan will take strict against anyone targeting
minorities, but this practice has continued for years with impunity.
Pakistani
contractors preach the world on Islamophobia, while Pakistan persecutes its own
Shias and Ahmadis. We are triggered over Muslim rights in Europe and India,
while oppressing our own minorities with state patronage.
And now,
there is another popular way to hide forced conversions to Islam — say the
minor girl was 18 and show a fake certificate or say she has had her first
period. She is an adult then, and no more questions are asked by the state.
‘Free-Will Affidavit’
Last month,
a teenage Hindu girl, Simran Kumari from Ghotki in Sindh, was kidnapped and
then miraculously resurfaced at the shrine of Bharchundi Sharif, infamous for
converting thousands of Hindu girls to Islam. Kumari’s family members are now
forbidden to see their daughter because they are ‘Kafirs’ and she has been
married off to her Muslim kidnapper.
In another
case earlier this month, 14-year-old Parsha Kumari from Khairpur was abducted,
forced to convert and married to Abdul Saboor. Like in most conversions cases,
the family produced a school certificate to verify age, but a ‘free-will
affidavit’ from the kidnapper-husband set the minor’s age at 18. Thus, showing
that the girl is an adult and can make her own decisions.
The dilemma
of each forced conversion is that no medical examinations are done to determine
the age of the minor independently by the authorities.
And
automatically, the system, which has been rigged by the religious and social
VIPs, sides with the captors and not the aggrieved families in most cases.
Questions arise on why only minor Hindu and Christian girls ‘fall in love to
get converted’ for men thrice their age? Why don’t Sindhi Hindu boys fall in
such love?
With Court Sanction
How does
the system help even if a girl escapes? There’s not even the pretence of
carrying out justice then.
Maria
Shahbaz, a 14-year-old Christian teenager who recently escaped her abductors,
provided testimony on how she was raped, forced to convert and then married to
her kidnapper. She was videotaped while being raped and was threatened with
release of her video if she didn’t obey orders. Maria was then pushed into the
prostitution ring — from where she escaped. Even after braving the ordeal of
repeating what happened to her, Maria and her family are being threatened, and
justice remains a far cry.
The Lahore
High Court had earlier ordered her to go back to her kidnapper after her family
protested. And when her family contested that she wasn’t 18 and was forced, the
court said: “The statement of Maria Shahbaz as well as her general appearance
unambiguously show that she is a grown-up young lady who seems to have attained
the age of puberty.”
Huma Younas,
another Christian girl who was abducted and converted at 14, is now pregnant
from rape by Abdul Jabbar. In her case, the Sindh High Court ruled that a girl
can get married after her first menstrual cycle under the Sharia law. It did
not matter if Huma was non-Muslim, or that her school and baptism certificate
showed she was born in 2005, or that she was kidnapped and forcefully converted
and married. Her forced marriage was given a legal cover despite the fact that
in Sindh, the Child Marriage Restraint Act 2013 prohibits marriage under the
age of 18. The federal government of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) had
vehemently opposed the bill to set the marriageable age of girls at 18 saying
it was un-Islamic.
A Lesser God
In the
absence of any law against forced conversion in Pakistan, there is hardly any
will from the provincial Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) government or the federal
Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) government to effectively implement the child
marriage laws in place. There is no dearth of cases but the seriousness of the
government is visible because it is still deciding on the “definition of forced
conversion” with the help of the clergy. Wonder how many more minors have to be
kidnapped and converted for lawmakers to define what a forced conversion is,
what is free will and what statutory rape is, how to independently verify age
of minors, and how the law should see sexual relationships with anyone below
16.
The fear of
kidnapping and conversion has had an impact even on affluent Sikh and Hindu families,
who, over the years, have stopped their girls from getting an education after
primary school. They say that it is the only way for them to protect vulnerable
girls.
Conversions
coupled with discriminatory laws and societal prejudices make life miserable
for the non-Muslims who want to survive in the country. But when notorious men
such as Mian Mithoo of Bharchundi Dargan hobnob with powerful men, it is a
clear message for Hindu parents — your daughters are children of a lesser god.
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Naila Inayat is a freelance journalist from
Pakistan.
Original Headline: Is she 18? How Pakistan’s forced conversion
of minors gets legal cover
Source: The Print
URL: https://newageislam.com/islamic-society/abduction-conversions-young-girls-legal/d/122943
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