Pakistan's Endemic: Forced Conversion Through Abduction and Marriage
On 25 March, Pakistan’s Federal Constitutional Court validated the Islamic marriage of a 13-year-old Christian girl, Maria Shahbaz, from Lahore (the capital of Punjab province). Maria’s father had filed a petition in court which stated that his daughter was abducted by a 30-year-old Muslim man in July 2025 and forcibly converted to Islam. Nevertheless, the court sided with Maria’s abusers.
Alongside Christian political and human rights groups, Catholic bishops organized protest gatherings to voice their concerns over the verdict, reported OSV News. On 10 April, during a protest rally in southern Punjab, Bishop Yousaf Sohan of Multan condemned the forced conversion and marriage of minor girls from minority communities and called for “justice for Maria.”
Maria is not the only victim. Nearly 1,000 non-Muslim girls and young women fall victim each year to abductions and forced conversions in Pakistan. These girls are victims of forced and sham marriages. They endure physical, sexual and emotional abuse which is used to coerce them into converting to Islam and renouncing their Hindu or Christian faith.
This endemic of severe abuse has recently been confirmed by the UN as well. An 22 April report by the United Nations Human Rights Office noted that women and girls belonging to minority communities in Pakistan continue to face abduction and forced conversion to Islam through marriage. Girls and women from the Hindu and Christian communities were the most affected by the practice last year, according to the UN experts. The report also blamed the Pakistan government for failing to tackle the menace.
The UN report further noted:
“In 2025, about 75 percent of the women and girls affected by forced conversion through marriage were Hindu and 25 percent Christian. Almost 80 percent of incidents occurred in Sindh province. Adolescent girls between 14 and 18 are particularly targeted and some girls are even younger. Women and girls facing poverty and marginalization face heightened risks, often being exposed to physical and sexual abuse and exploitation, social stigma and severe trauma.
“’These women and girls endure a continuous sense of terror, face coercion and are deprived of their freedom of religion or belief and autonomy under patriarchal and political pressures. This must stop,’ the experts said.
“The scale and persistence of these grave human rights violations point to systemic discrimination against non-Muslim women and girls who are forced or compelled to convert to Islam in order to marry Muslim men.”
According to 2025 UNICEF data, Pakistan has the sixth highest number of child brides globally: an estimated 19 million girls are married before the age of 18. Nearly half become pregnant before their 18th birthday, posing serious health risks for both the mother and child. Only 13 percent of married girls finish secondary school, compared to 44 percent of their unmarried peers. This limits their future opportunities and independence.
However, Pakistan does not have a law specifically addressing forced conversions, human rights activist Peter Jacob of the Center for Justice, Lahore, told Sapan News. Under Section 498-B of the Pakistan Penal Code, a convict can be sentenced up to 10 years in prison for forced marriages. However, this law is not applied to conversion cases, Jacob noted.
Jacob said that a major contributor to this issue stems from the fact that marriage certificates in conversion cases are swiftly issued. In some cases, courts do not take into account official documents (the parents’ marriage certificate or the National Database and Registration Authority documents) which prove that the girl is under 18. Instead, they accept the instant marriage certificate, he added.
Speaking to Sapan News, Veengas J, editor of The Rise News, Pakistan, said that when families file abduction cases and girls are recovered, the courts often deny access to their parents. However, the alleged abductors are permitted to meet the girls. Thus, the manipulation of the abused girls continues. Veengas added that even the police often initially refuse to register FIRs (First Information Reports), and when they do, girls are not consistently returned to their families.
Reports from the country indicate a continued trend of abductions, forced conversions, and forced marriages targeting non-Muslims.
On 21 April 2026, the Voice of Pakistan Minority (VOPM) reported that a 9th-grade Hindu girl named Pooja, daughter of Ramsun Thakur, was abducted in Sindh province. The VOPM said that Pooja was forced to convert to Islam, renamed “Dua Fatima,” and married to a man named Imran Ali.
In a separate development, Sidra Bibi, a 15-year-old Christian girl in Pakistan’s Punjab Province, was abducted on 27 March at gunpoint, forcibly converted to Islam and married to the kidnapper, according to a report from the Christian Daily International. Her father, Afzal Javed Masih, said that police in Pakistan declined to recover the girl.
This widespread abuse has long been condemned by many international rights organizations. ADF International, for instance, has since 2019 supported a total of 52 cases in Pakistan — including 14 Christian minor girls freed from the horrors of sexual slavery and forced conversion.
According to ADF International, in Pakistan,
“Forced religious conversion is often used as a loophole to shield abductors from prosecution. Once a girl is coerced into converting to Islam, her abductor can falsely claim the marriage was lawful — even if she’s still a child.
“Pakistan has signed international treaties meant to protect human rights. Despite these legal protections on paper, the justice system often fails these girls.
“Courts are often reluctant to intervene, allegedly due to pressure from Islamist groups, and families are discouraged from reporting these crimes.
And even when cases are reported, legal loopholes and inconsistent enforcement leave these girls unprotected and their abductors unpunished.”
In their 22 April statement, the UN experts reiterated their call on Pakistan to intensify efforts to eradicate forced conversions, to raise the minimum age for marriage to 18 in all provinces and territories, to criminalize forced religious conversion as a distinct offence and to enforce applicable laws pertaining to human trafficking and sexual violence.
The experts echoed the recommendations of several UN Treaty Bodies, urging a prompt investigation into all allegations impartially and effectively. They called for all perpetrators to be brought to justice.
“We are deeply concerned that law enforcement authorities often dismiss complaints lodged by victims’ families, fail to investigate or prosecute forced conversions in a timely manner, or neglect to properly assess the age of victims,” the experts said.
Many human rights organizations have previously called on Pakistan to combat and eliminate abductions, forced conversions and forced marriages of non-Muslim children and women, but the government of Pakistan has not taken required steps to help end the problem, which has created thousands of victims throughout the decades. The question is: In addition to issuing reports or press releases, what will the UN do to urge Pakistan to help protect the victims? Imposing targeted, comprehensive economic sanctions on the abductors, as well as the police authorities, individuals within court systems and government officials who enable the abusers could be an effective start.
Uzay Bulut is a fellow at the Ideological Defense Institute
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Duh why would anyone question the validity of the Islamic republic of Pakistan’s sharia based decision? Islam is evil and it is a political system masquerading as a religion. It is at best primitive and vulgar. Wake up 2 billion people are damned wrong! Protest all you want the answer they will unanimously give is to put the sword to your neck. Don’t believe me pick up a copy of the Quran and Hadith. This purported theology makes Mein Kampf and nazism seem like children’s books.
No doubt the UN will give some committee job to these monsters, as rapporteur for girls rights .
And- of course- no reporting from Amnesty, MeToo, Feminist groups or the BBC. Their culcha innit?
And crickets from the churches globally. Just evil. May God stoke the fires of hell for we cowards and silent enablers of all this.