Christians Fearing Forced Marriages in Pakistan Find Hope
The Lahore High Court’s recent directive to strictly enforce anti-child marriage laws has raised hope among Pakistan’s Christians of some protection against their underage girls being forced to convert to Islam and wed their kidnappers, sources said.
On February 28, Justice Anwar Ul Haq Pannun of the Multan Bench of the Lahore High Court issued a historic interim order requiring the government to uphold the anti-child marriage laws in letter and spirit. A Muslim woman named Ramzana Bibi presented a petition to the court asking for custody of a niece who had been the victim of child marriage.
To ensure the effective implementation of child marriage restraint laws, the court established a high-level committee under Punjab’s Prosecutor General, Syed Fahad Ali Shah. It also ordered chairpersons of union councils to promptly annul any underage marriages, with the court mandating strict legal actions against such unions.
Pannun’s order also instructed the assistant director of the local government to conduct monthly reviews of union council records at the local tehsil level, emphasizing the critical role of local government in the complex challenge.
Shafique has won freedom for several Christian girls forcibly converted to Islam and married those who kidnapped them.
The attorney said that, in the absence of laws against forcible conversion, strict enforcement of anti-child marriage laws could be a strong deterrent against abductions and conversions of minority girls.
“Though advocacy efforts are being made for criminalizing forced conversions, I believe that laws against child marriage can also help curb religious conversion of underage minority girls,” she said. “The superior courts must also ensure that the subordinate courts follow these directions and evaluate cases involving religious conversion and marriage of minor girls under the anti-child marriage laws, instead of invoking the sharia [Islamic law] laws.”
Referring to a recent decision by Lahore High Court Justice Aalia Neelum in a bail petition, Shafique said the judge criticized the defendant’s lawyer and police officials when she learned that a 12-year-old Christian girl had been forcibly converted and married to a Muslim man five times her age.
“The judge rejected the accused’s bail and ordered him to start his trial, which is very encouraging. If high court judges deal with such matters empathetically, the attitude of the trial courts will also gradually improve,” Shafique said.
Church of Pakistan, President Bishop Azad Marshall welcomed the Lahore High Court’s orders.
Marshall also called for criminalizing forced conversions, emphasizing that the recent amendment to the Christian Marriage Act, wherein the minimum age for marriage of Christians was fixed at 18 years, would pave the way for more legislation for the protection of girls.
“We also hope that the new parliament will pass our draft bill on Christian personal laws, under which a Christian marriage cannot be annulled automatically in case either of the two partners changed their faith,” he said.
According to a U.N. report issued in 2020, Pakistan has the sixth highest number of girls married before the age of 18 in the world.
Child marriage is prevalent in Pakistan due to deeply entrenched traditions and customs, poverty, lack of awareness and access to education, and a lack of security, among other reasons, the report noted.
Health and human rights-based angles are frequently used to advocate for ending child marriage, but often neglected is that early marriage also negatively impacts a country’s economic growth and development. Child marriage will cost developing countries trillions of dollars by 2030, according to a study by the World Bank in 2017.
