Acting on court orders, police in Pakistan rescued 12-year-old Farah Shaheen, a Christian girl, five months after she was kidnapped by a group of Muslim men, forced to convert to Islam, and married to one of her abductors against her wishes.
Her release took place shortly after Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan ordered an investigation into the forced conversion of minor girls and women of minority religions.
Shaheen appeared in early December before the District Court of Allahabad. She had gashes on her ankles, indicating she was physically restrained with a rope or metal chain during her captivity.
Shaheen’s father, Asif Masih, complained to police that three men abducted his daughter on June 25 from the family’s home in Ahmedabad. He claimed that one of the kidnappers, a 45-year-old man named Khizar Ahmad Ali, then forced her to convert to Islam and married her.
Police ignored Masih’s repeated complaints and it took him four months to find a lawyer, who filed a case in District Court.
Many victims of forced marriages in Pakistan are minor girls who are often sexually assaulted and fraudulently married, according to International Christian Concern (ICC). ICC claims that authorities are often complicit in the crimes.
On November 10, ICC reported that the Catholic Church in Pakistan is preparing to petition the High Court in Sindh province to rule on the issue of whether it is even legal for minors to convert from one faith to another.
The effort comes in the aftermath of another Christian family’s struggle in the city of Karachi to seek the return of their 13-year-old daughter, Arzoo Raja, who was abducted October 13, forcibly converted to Islam and then married to the family’s 44-year-old Muslim neighbor.
According to a 2014 study cited by ICC, an estimated 1,000 Christian and Hindu women are kidnapped and forced to marry in Pakistan every year after being forced to convert to Islam.
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