The Canadian Press
Each year, 1,000 Pakistani girls forcibly converted to Islam
KARACHI, Pakistan — Neha liked the hymns that crammed her church with music. However she misplaced the prospect to sing them final yr when, on the age of 14, she was forcibly transformed from Christianity to Islam and married to a 45-year-old man with kids twice her age.
She tells her story in a voice so low it often fades away. She all however disappears as she wraps a blue scarf tightly round her face and head. Neha’s husband is in jail now going through fees of rape for the underage marriage, however she is in hiding, afraid after safety guards confiscated a pistol from his brother in courtroom.
“He introduced the gun to shoot me,” mentioned Neha, whose final identify The Related Press shouldn’t be utilizing for her security.
Neha is one in every of practically 1,000 women from non secular minorities who’re compelled to transform to Islam in Pakistan annually, largely to pave the way in which for marriages which are beneath the authorized age and non-consensual. Human rights activists say the apply has accelerated throughout lockdowns in opposition to the coronavirus, when women are out of faculty and extra seen, bride traffickers are extra lively on the Web and households are extra in debt.
The U.S. State Division this month declared Pakistan “a rustic of specific concern” for violations of non secular freedoms — a designation the Pakistani authorities rejects. The declaration was primarily based partly on an appraisal by the U.S. Fee on Worldwide Spiritual Freedom that underage women within the minority Hindu, Christian, and Sikh communities have been “kidnapped for compelled conversion to Islam… forcibly married and subjected to rape.”
Whereas many of the transformed women are impoverished Hindus from southern Sindh province, two new circumstances involving Christians, together with Neha’s, have roiled the nation in latest months.
The women usually are kidnapped by complicit acquaintances and family or males on the lookout for brides. Generally they’re taken by highly effective landlords as fee for excellent money owed by their farmhand dad and mom, and police typically look the opposite approach. As soon as transformed, the women are shortly married off, typically to older males or to their abductors, in response to the unbiased Human Rights Fee of Pakistan.
Compelled conversions thrive unchecked on a money-making internet that includes Islamic clerics who solemnize the marriages, magistrates who legalize the unions and corrupt native police who help the culprits by refusing to research or sabotaging investigations, say little one safety activists.
One activist, Jibran Nasir, referred to as the community a “mafia” that preys on non-Muslim women as a result of they’re essentially the most weak and the simplest targets “for older males with pedophilia urges.”
The objective is to safe virginal brides slightly than to hunt new converts to Islam. Minorities make up simply 3.6 per cent of Pakistan’s 220 million folks and sometimes are the goal of discrimination. Those that report compelled conversions, for instance, might be focused with fees of blasphemy.
Within the feudal Kashmore area of southern Sindh province, 13-year-old Sonia Kumari was kidnapped, and a day later police advised her dad and mom she had transformed from Hinduism to Islam. Her mom pleaded for her return in a video broadly considered on the web: “For the sake of God, the Qur’an, no matter you imagine, please return my daughter, she was forcibly taken from our residence.”
However a Hindu activist, who didn’t need to be recognized for worry of repercussions from highly effective landlords, mentioned she obtained a letter that the household was compelled to write down. The letter claimed the 13-year-old had willingly transformed and wed a 36-year-old who was already married with two kids.
The dad and mom have given up.
Arzoo Raja was 13 when she disappeared from her residence in central Karachi. The Christian lady’s dad and mom reported her lacking and pleaded with police to seek out her. Two days later, officers reported again that she had been transformed to Islam and was married to their 40-year-old Muslim neighbour.
In Sindh province, the age of consent for marriage is eighteen years outdated. Arzoo’s marriage certificates mentioned she was 19.
The cleric who carried out Arzoo’s marriage, Qasi Ahmed Mufti Jaan Raheemi, was later implicated in no less than three different underage marriages. Regardless of going through an impressive arrest warrant for solemnizing Arzoo’s marriage, he continued his apply in his ramshackle workplace above a wholesale rice market in downtown Karachi.
When an Related Press reporter arrived at his workplace, Raheemi fled down a aspect stair, in response to a fellow cleric, Mullah Kaifat Ullah, one in every of a half-dozen clerics who additionally performs marriages within the complicated. He mentioned one other cleric is already in jail for marrying kids.
Whereas Ullah mentioned he solely marries women 18 and above, he argued that “beneath Islamic regulation a woman’s wedding ceremony on the age of 14 or 15 is okay.”
Arzoo’s mom, Rita Raja, mentioned police ignored the household’s appeals till in the future she was videotaped outdoors the courtroom sobbing and pleading for her daughter to be returned. The video went viral, making a social media storm in Pakistan and prompting the authorities to step in.
“For 10 days, the dad and mom have been languishing between the police station and authorities authorities and completely different political events,” Nasir, the activist, mentioned. “They weren’t being given any time… till it went viral. That’s the actual unlucky factor over right here.”
Authorities have stepped in and arrested Arzoo’s husband, however her mom mentioned her daughter nonetheless refuses to come back residence. Raja mentioned she is afraid of her husband’s household.
The lady who liked hymns, Neha, mentioned she was tricked into the wedding by a favorite aunt, who advised Neha to accompany her to the hospital to see her sick son. Her aunt, Sandas Baloch, had transformed to Islam years earlier than and lived together with her husband in the identical house constructing as Neha’s household.
“All Mama requested once we left was ’when will you be again?’” remembered Neha.
As a substitute of going to the hospital, she was taken to the house of her aunt’s in-laws and advised she would marry her aunt’s 45-year-old brother-in-law.
“I advised her I can’t, I’m too younger and I don’t need to. He’s outdated,” Neha mentioned. “She slapped me and locked me up in a room.”
Neha advised of being taken earlier than two males, one who was to be her husband and the opposite who recorded her marriage. They mentioned she was 19. She mentioned she was too frightened to talk as a result of her aunt threatened to hurt her two-year-old brother if she refused to marry.
She discovered of her conversion solely when she was advised to signal the wedding certificates together with her new identify — Fatima.
For per week she was locked in a single room. Her new husband got here to her on the primary night time. Tears stained her blue scarf as she remembered it:
“I screamed and cried all night time. I’ve photos in my thoughts I can’t scratch out,” mentioned Neha. “I hate him.”
His elder daughter introduced her meals every day, and Neha begged for assist to flee. Though the girl was afraid of her father, she relented per week after the wedding, bringing the underage bride a burqa — the all-covering garment worn by some Muslim ladies — and 500 rupees (about $3). Neha fled.
However when she arrived residence, Neha discovered her household had turned in opposition to her.
“I went residence and I cried to my Mama about my aunt, what she mentioned and the threats. However she didn’t need me anymore,” mentioned Neha.
Her dad and mom feared what her new husband would possibly do to them, Neha mentioned. Additional, the prospects of marriage for a lady in conservative Pakistan who has been raped or married earlier than are slim, and human rights activists say they typically are seen as a burden.
Neha’s household, together with her aunt, all refused to speak to the AP. Her husband’s lawyer, Mohammad Saleem, insisted that she married and transformed voluntarily.
Neha discovered safety at a Christian church in Karachi, dwelling on the compound with the pastor’s household, who say the lady nonetheless wakes screaming within the night time. She hopes to return to highschool in the future however remains to be distraught.
“Originally my nightmares have been each night time, however now it’s simply typically after I keep in mind and inside I’m shaking,” she mentioned. “Earlier than I needed to be a lawyer, however now I don’t know what I’ll do. Even my mama doesn’t need me now.”
Kathy Gannon, The Related Press
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