The government-imposed lockdown to fight the Covid-19 pandemic has boosted crime against minor girls, especially those from the religious minorities in Pakistan, Minority rights organization Centre for Social Justice (CSJ) has said.
Closure of schools thanks to the lockdown has exposed girls to the prying eyes even in their unguarded homes while their elders go out to earn a living. It has given fillip to crime in general, but more so against minor girls from poor families and especially if they happen to be Hindus, Christians or Sikhs.
All Pakistan Governments deny any official hand or laxity in curbing the menace. They maintain that forced conversion of minorities is “not institutionalized”.
Laws to protect minors and minorities are weak or non-existent in Pakistan where the Muslim clergy insists upon their religious rights to convert non-Muslim. The men who abduct and marry minor girls do so on the widespread belief that this would guarantee them a place in the heaven.
The Associated Press (AP), the U.S. global news outlet had reported in December last year that nearly 1,000 girls from religious minorities are forced to convert to Islam in the country each year, largely to facilitate marriages that are under the legal age and non-consensual. It quoted human rights activists as saying that the practice had accelerated during lockdowns against the coronavirus.
Experts say the crime goes up in proportion with the dwindling populations of the religious minorities and growing influence of the clergy who use this to make money. The police step in only after the crime is committed and the magistracy accept the tutored version of the girls, even if their below 18, the permissible age for consent.
Minority rights organization Centre for Social Justice (CSJ) has recorded over 160 questionable conversions of women and underage girls from religious minorities in the country had been reported in the media between 2013 and 2020, Dawn newspaper reported June 15, 2021.
According to CSJ data, around 52 per cent of the incidents of alleged forced conversions had occurred in Punjab, 44pc in Sindh, 1.23pc each in the federal area and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, while one case (0.62pc) was reported from Balochistan.
Such incidents cause outrage and protests that are short-lived, Parents do not have the means to appeal against the police or the lower court verdicts. Some exceptions are Christian girls who receive relief because the influential media I the Western countries take up their case.
In an incident on March 10 this year, a 13-year-old Hindu girl named Kavita Bai was kidnapped by a man, forcibly converted to Islam and then married off to her abductor in the Kashmore district of Pakistan's Sindh province.
In yet another incident of abduction and forcible conversion of a Hindu girl in Pakistan, a minor girl belonging to the minority community was kidnapped and forcibly converted to Islam. She was later married off to the abductor.
According to South Asia Media Research Institute, the girl was married off to her abductor after the conversion. The incident took place in the Tangwani Taluka of Kashmore district in Sindh province, a report in Pakistan Today said.
The institute also shared the video of the conversion which has now gone viral on the internet, compelling the authorities to act.
It was organized and planned. The minor girl was kidnapped by five men from her home on March 8. According to her father's claim, at least five armed men had barged into their residence and dragged the girl to a vehicle and escaped.
A name that keeps cropping up among the NGOs, the law-keepers and the media is that of a clergy of the Barelvi sect, Mian MIthoo, credited with converting minor Hindu girls in Sindh, marrying them off to the abductors, often middle-aged men and supporting their case vigorously before the court.
In the latest case (reported on June 15) hat occurred in Gujranwala, Punjab, a local court allowed the girl, a Christian, to go with her purported husband after she recorded a statement in his support. But the girl’s father, Shahid Gill, who is a tailor from Arif Town and a Christian, said the daughter was kidnapped, converted to Islam and forcibly married to a middle-aged man in Ferozewala area of Gujranwala is seeking justice for his family.
The Child Marriage Restraint Act 1929 states that a marriage cannot be registered of a "child" — meaning a male who is under 18 years of age, and a female who is under 16 years of age.
A birth certificate of the girl issued by the Punjab government and shared by her family showed that she was born on October 17, 2007, meaning she is 13 as of now.
Abduction, forcible conversion and marriage of minor girls from minorities has for long been Pakistan’s Aichelles Heel. It has a measure of social acceptance among the Muslims. “Why is the father complaining? She chose the best religion in the world and it is a cause of celebration and not for recrimination,” Alla Bax wrote to the newspaper about Shahid Gill’s complaint.
Forbes magazine has quoted the Human rights organizations’ estimates that every year 1,000 such girls are forcibly converted to Islam. This estimate could be even higher than 1,000 as many cases remain unreported.
The 2020 US media report also estimates the number of forcibly converted girls to be around 1,000 per year. However the Pakistan government rejected it and termed the report as "rubbish and baseless". The Catholic news site Aleteia reported that in 2020, the number of forced conversion cases rose to more than 2000.
According to the Child Protection activists, these forced conversions money-making network which involves Islamic clerics who solemnize the marriages, magistrates who legalize the unions and corrupt local police who aid the culprits by refusing to investigate or sabotaging investigations.
According to the Child Protection activist Jibran Nasir, these forced conversions are part of a mafia that preys on vulnerable minority girls for older men with pedophilia urges. The Pakistan Muslim League politician Haresh Chopra has stated that abduction and forced conversion of Hindus and Sikhs girls is a business in Pakistan done by organized gangs of mullahs and terrorists.
