Pakistani court allows marriage of kidnapped Christian girl - Politics Forum.org | PoFo

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For those of you who don't understand what's happening here, there's a mentality in some parts of the Muslim World that their men almost sort of have the right to take women from non-muslim groups. And besides, it's seen as not that bad since a non-muslim woman being made to live with a muslim man will be very likely to convert her to Islam.


Pakistani court allows marriage of kidnapped Christian girl because she had first period

The Christian Post
Samuel Smith
February 11, 2020
https://www.christianpost.com/news/Pakistani ... gt5vVHYOw4

A court in Pakistan has ruled against the family of a kidnapped Christian girl who was forced into an Islamic marriage, saying in its decision that no law was broken if the girl had already had her first period.
The Catholic Charity Aid to the Church in Need-Italy reports that the Sindh High Court in Karachi issued the Feb. 3 ruling in the case of 14-year-old Huma Younus, who was taken from her home on Oct. 10, 2019, and later married to a radical Muslim man.

According to the charity, which is supporting the family, judge Muhammad Iqbal Kalhoro and Irshad Ali Shah ruled that the Catholic girl’s marriage to her alleged abductor, Abdul Jabbar, is valid under Sharia law because the child has already had her first menstrual cycle.

“Once again justice has been defeated and once again has been proved that our state does not consider Christians to be Pakistani citizens,” mother Nagheena Younus told Aid to the Church in Need-Italy after the hearing.

Younus’ parents said their daughter’s marriage violates the Sindh Child Marriage Restraint Act forbidding the marriage of girls age 18 and younger. Although the law was passed in 2014, it has not yet been applied.

“We hoped that the law could have been applied for the first time in this case,” lawyer Tabassum Yousaf was quoted as saying. “But evidently in Pakistan, these laws are formulated and approved only to improve the image of the country in front of the international community, [and to] ask for funds for development and trade Pakistani products on the European market for free.”

Muslim-majority Pakistan ranks as the fifth-worst country in the world when it comes to Christian persecution on the Open Doors USA 2020 World Watch List.

As the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom reports, it’s estimated that as many as 1,000 women and girls are forcibly converted to Islam each year in Pakistan, many of whom are kidnapped, married and subject to rape.
Last year, Pakistan lawmakers rejected a national bill that would have raised the child marriage age to 18 after it was opposed by Minister for Religious Affairs Noorul Haq Qadari and other officials.

According to Aid to the Church in Need, Younus was due to appear in court during last Monday’s hearing, as was requested during a previous hearing held on Jan 16. However, Younus was not present for the hearing.

The judges ordered a medical examination of the child to verify her age, a request made by the family’s lawyer. However, Yousaf does not trust a fair examination will take place.
“It is clear that since [investigation officer Akhtar Hussain] is in charge, there is a high probability that the test results will be falsified,” the lawyer argued. “But we keep hoping that the girl’s minor age will be proven so that she could at least be entrusted to a center for women, and taken away from her rapist.”

The next court hearing in the matter is scheduled for March 4. But even if the girl’s age can be verified, the decision to validate the marriage because of menstruation reduces the chance that Jabbar will be held to account for his actions, the charity reports.

Nagheena Younus vowed to take the case all the way to the Pakistan Supreme Court if need be.

“This morning’s sentence casts shame on the Pakistani judicial system,” ACN-Italy Director Alessandro Monteduro said in a statement. “It is unimaginable that Sharia can prevail over the law of the state. We express all our outrage, but we won’t give up for Huma and the over a thousand girls that every year in Pakistan are kidnapped, raped, converted by force to Islam and forced to marry their kidnapper.”

“Even today we have learned that all of that is legitimate, because in Pakistan even an 8- or 9-year-old girl can legally be given as a wife if she has already had her period,” he added.
According to AsiaNews, the court allowed the child to file an affidavit declaring that she got married on her own free will. However, Yousaf contends that such an affidavit can't be filed legally until the child is presented with an identity card number at the age of 18.

News of the judges’ ruling drew much criticism on social media.
“Underage #Catholic girl Huma Younus & other girls can be married as long as they have had their first menstrual cycle, the High Court in #Pakistan ruled. This is so wrong and disgusting!” former European Parliament member Marijana Petir tweeted. “I urge the @EU_Commission and the international community to stop all relationship with Pakistan.”

Popular Pakistani actor, writer and choreographer, Osman Khalid Butt, also voiced his dismay on Twitter.
“I immediately Googled the Sindh Court ruling thinking there must be some mistake,” he wrote in a tweet. “How could they consider a marriage valid when it was done under duress, after an abduction & forced conversion? Boy, was I naive.”

For the past two years, Pakistan has been labeled by the United States State Department as a “country of particular concern” for tolerating or engaging in severe violations of religious freedom.

In addition to the tolerance of forced abductions and marriages as well as societal persecution against religious minorities, Pakistan is the world’s leader when it comes to the number of people imprisoned for blasphemy. According to blasphemy law critic Shaan Taseer, a son of the late Punjab governor Salmaan Taseer, about 200 people or more are in jail in Pakistan on blasphemy charges with as many of 40 of them on death row.
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Another abduction:

Her Name is Arzoo Raja. She is 13. She belongs to a religious minority group in Pakistan. On October 13, 2020, Arzoo was abducted and this was the end of her life as she knew it. Earlier in the year I wrote about other Pakistani religious minority girls sharing the same fate. Myra Shehbaz, 14 at the time of abduction. Huma Younus, 14 at the time of abduction. Mehwish, 14. Sana John, 13. Farzana and Sehrish, aged 14 and 16 respectively. Maria Sarfraz, 11. And the list goes on. Indeed, according to the Movement for Solidarity and Peace (MSP), a human rights organization in the country, around 1,000 Christian and Hindu women and girls are kidnapped each year, forced to convert and marry Muslim men. The victims are usually between the ages of 12 and 25. Despite these shocking statistics, the number of victims may be even higher as many cases remain unreported, often due to the girls’ families’ limited financial means.

Allegedly, after Arzoo’s abduction, she was forcibly converted and forcibly married to a man three times her age. Arzoo’s parents reported the crime to the police trying to seek legal recourse and get her back home. However, a few days after doing so, the Sindh Police presented them with a “conversion certificate” to suggest that Arzoo had converted voluntarily. While the voluntary conversion is highly questionable, the document does not deal with the important issue that Arzoo, who is only 13, could not be seen as having converted voluntarily. Indeed, in another case, Nasira v Judicial Magistrate, the Lahore High Court recognized that an under-age girl lacks legal capacity to convert. The Lahore High Court decided that the young girl who was barely 14, “As she is not sui juris she lacks legal capacity to change religion on her own. However, the question of faith being a matter of heart and one’s conviction, no Court can declare her conversion invalid or void. It can only refuse to recognize or give effect to it for certain legal purposes. The Petitioner being the lawful guardian of Pumy Muskan is entitled to her custody. There is no reason to deprive her of that right.”
Arzoo’s parents proceeded to the Sindh High Court. There another issue emerged, that the marriage certificate suggests that she is 18. This was despite the fact that Arzoo’s family had her birth certificate showing she is 13, having been born in July 2007. Allegedly, the judge refused to look at the government registered birth certificate.

Commenting on the case, Ambreen Qureshi, a barrister working on many such cases pro bono, has said “the law on child marriages (the Child Marriages Restraint Act) albeit present, has been totally disregarded. It seems that neither the police not the judiciary is inclined to recognize it. [Arzoo] has been sent away with the abductor in blatant violation of the Child Marriage Restraint Act, where she is being raped and will continue to be raped until the Court comes to a decision. What kind of justice is this? Protection of the child [in such a case] is the responsibility of the state. Despite having an alarming number of forced conversion cases, no steps have been taken by the government to protect our minorities. I suggest in all such cases of forced conversions/child marriage, state should, at the very least, take over the custody of the child, keep them at the child protection bureaus which are present in each province until the final decision of the case is made by the court.”

After pressure from campaign groups and a public outcry, on November 2, 2020, Shireen Mazari, Minister for Human Rights in Pakistan, posted on social media that the Sindh High Court has ordered Arzoo be recovered by police and moved into a shelter home. Arzoo will appear before the court on November 5, 2020, and will have her age determined. The next days will show whether Arzoo and her family will see justice being done.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/ewelinaoch ... 61edab6263
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Not just in Pakistan...

https://www1.cbn.com/cbnnews/cwn/2020/s ... s-in-egypt

'Jihad of the Womb': Report Exposes Systemic Abduction of Christian Girls in Egypt

A Christian watchdog group has shined the spotlight on the widespread practice of abduction and trafficking of Coptic Christian women and girls in Egypt and how they are particularly vulnerable to exploitation.

Coptic Solidarity was established in 2010 and is dedicated to achieving equal citizenship rights for the Copts in Egypt. They released the report "Jihad of the Womb: Trafficking of Coptic Women & Girls in Egypt" last Thursday.

The report argues, "The capture and disappearance of Coptic women and minor girls is a bane of the Coptic community in Egypt, yet little has been done to address this scourge by the Egyptian or foreign governments, NGOs, or international bodies."

CBN News Chief International Correspondent Gary Lane has covered the plight of Coptic Christians in Egypt for many years.

"Christian girls are often targeted by Muslim men in heavily Islamic countries like Egypt. Many are neighbors who charm impoverished Christian girls with kindness and gifts," Lane explained. "Attracted by the good looks and kindness of young Muslim men, the girls are lured away from their families based on empty promises of wealth and successful life. Some are raped and culturally that brings shame to their families. They see conversion to Islam and marriage as their only way out."

The report also addresses the Egyptian government's lack of action and counters the government's blanket excuse not to scrutinize, for example by claiming that the women left their families voluntarily as a reason not to investigate their cases further.

"Years ago I heard the story of an impoverished Christian girl who possessed just one dress to wear. Each day, she ate only one meal of rice and vegetables. One day, a handsome, young Muslim man gifted her with a dress and took her on a date for a meal at Kentucky Fried Chicken. He kidnapped the girl and she never returned to her family," Lane noted.

A priest in the Minya Governorate told Coptic Solidarity at least 15 girls go missing every year in his area alone. His own daughter was nearly kidnapped had he not been able to intervene in time.

"The large majority of these women are never reunited with their families or friends because police response in Egypt is dismissive and corrupt. There are countless families who report that police have either been complicit in the kidnapping or at the very least bribed into silence," according to the report.

Lane confirms that the pattern of Egyptian authorities ignoring the plight of these Coptic Christian girls and their families.

"Christians receive little help from Muslim law enforcement authorities—especially in small villages in Upper Egypt," he noted. "I met with the father of an abducted 15-year old. The poor Christian farm laborer discovered the identity of the kidnapper and his daughter's whereabouts. The man went to the police station to report what he had learned and asked the chief to help him rescue his daughter. The police chief slapped the Christian farm laborer's face and shouted, 'Do you think I have nothing better to do than to search for your infidel daughter!'"
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