The Disappearing Religious Minority Women And Girls In Pakistan

(OPINION) In recent months, media outlets covered a number of stories involving young girls who have been abducted, forcibly converted, forcibly married and abused. While all these stories are tragic, these cases are not isolated occurrences. They are part of a larger problem that continues to be neglected - the issue of ideologically motivated sexual abuse that targets women from religious minorities.

Indeed, recent cases from Pakistan show how religious minority women and girls are abducted, forcibly converted, forcibly married and abused, but also how their families are unsuccessful in their attempts to challenge these crimes using legal avenues. While the abductions, forced conversions, forced marriages and abuse are perpetrated by individuals, the fate of religious minority women and girls is often sealed as the existing laws or handling such cases deem any legal recourse unavailable or ineffective.

For example, the family of Huma Younus,  14 at the time of abduction, have worked tirelessly trying to get her back. In her case, the court “dismissed a petition to have the marriage and forced conversion of a Catholic girl overturned”, stating that a girl is ready to marry after she has had her first period.

Another 14 years old girl, Myra Shehbaz, faced a similar fate. Her family has taken to the courts. Initially, the Sessions Court in Faisalabad directed that the girl be rehabilitated in a woman’s shelter. However, the Lahore High Court later overturned the decision and ordered that the 14-year-old girl be returned to her abductor. She has since escaped from her abductor.

Most recently, there is the case of Saneha Kinza Iqbal, a 15-year-old girl who was also abducted, forcibly converted and married to a man twice her age. Her family has been trying to get her back with assistance from Faisalabad Police, however, they have been unsuccessful.

In other cases, where the families manage to get their daughters back, there may be other challenges preventing the girls from returning to their lives, as in the case of Pumy Muskan, the then 14-year-old girl, who was abducted, forcibly converted and forcibly married to her abductor. Her family took to the courts in an attempt to reunite her with her family. In this case, the Lahore High Court affirmed that an underage girl lacks capacity to convert and ordered that she be returned to her family home. However, since then, she had to flee her home because of threats she received (as she was considered to be an apostate).

These four cases have received international attention, whether through media or NGOs assisting the families of the girls. However, in Pakistan alone, more than 1,000 women and girls from Hindu and Christian communities are abducted, forcibly converted to Islam and forcefully married to their captors every year. Each of the girls share the same fate of abduction, forced conversion, forced marriage and abuse. They also share similar characteristics - all young, underage, belonging to religious minorities. Their stories continue to be invisible.

A recent research published by Prof. Mariz Taros, Director of the Coalition for Religious Equality and Inclusive Development (CREID), sheds light on this underrepresented issue that continues to affect religious minority women and girls. According to Prof. Tadros, ideologically motivated sexual abuse involves “predators targeting girls and women who are vulnerable often because of economic deprivation, personal hardship, harsh family circumstances and societal rejection, etc.” not only because of sexual predation but to “conquest’” the woman or girl from a religious minority and “claiming” her for the majority religion. One of the cases studied by Prof. Tadros is of the situation of religious minority women and girls in Pakistan.

Currently, any efforts to address the issue are predominately reactive. Little proactive effort is expended to prevent such treatment of religious minority women and girls in the first place. Indeed, such cases continue to be perceived as exceptions rather than as part of a larger problem, namely, of ideologically motivated sexual abuse. As such, Prof. Tadros argues that the first steps to address the issues must be the recognition of  the issue as “a form of sexual predatory behavior that targets many women who belong to religious minorities.” This should help to identify the tactics and red flags of such conduct. Second, states must ensure that police forces are trained and equipped to investigate and respond to such cases. This includes not only securing their timely return, but also, ensuring that the perpetrator is investigated and prosecuted for the abduction, forced conversion, forced marriage and abuse. Third, laws that enable or accommodate such treatment of women, empowering the perpetrator, need to be repealed or amended as soon as possible, and new laws introduced to provide better protections to the targeted religious minority women and girls. To explore the issue further Lord Alton of Liverpool, a Crossbench peer at the U.K. House of Lords, announced an inquiry into the issue that will aim to identify the needed responses.

A lot needs to change to ensure that women and girls who are abducted, forcibly converted, forcibly married, stand a chance against the systems that enable and accommodate their abuse. However, equally, the societies where such acts occur, need to undergo change so that such atrocities become unimaginable. There is no justification for violence and abuse against women and girls, whenever and wherever they occurs.

Ewelina U. Ochab is a legal researcher and human rights advocate, PhD candidate and author of the book “Never Again: Legal Responses to a Broken Promise in the Middle East” and more than 30 UN reports. She works on the topic of persecution of minorities around the world. This piece was re-published from Forbes with permission.