Fourteen-year-old Christian girl Ariha Gulzar has been reunited with her family eleven weeks after being abducted by her Muslim neighbour. Her return to her family was made by order of the Lahore High Court.
On 7 April Ariha was finally presented in court by the police (a petition for the recovery of Ariha was initially submitted to the court in mid-March and a further court hearing was held on 24 March). Witnesses at the court hearing said that Ariha appeared disoriented and to be under pressure. In her statement to the court, she claimed to be 18 years old, said she had converted to Islam, and insisted that she had married her alleged abductor of her own free will. Such statements are often made by abducted Christian girls in court due to threats and intimidation by the kidnappers.
However, official documents submitted to the court by the family’s legal team, supported by Church in Chains partner organisation CLAAS, confirmed that Ariha is a minor. These records, including her birth certificate, were accepted by Justice Shahram Sarwar as valid government-issued evidence. In his ruling, Justice Sarwar rejected the defence’s arguments and the claim of a lawful marriage and ordered Ariha’s immediate release and return to her mother’s custody.
REACTION
“This is a great legal victory not only for the family and our legal team but for all human rights activists,” said Nasir Saeed, Director of CLAAS-UK. “Too often in similar cases, courts accept claims under Shariah law and allow underage girls to remain with their abductors. In Islam, any girl who has started menstruating is sometimes wrongly considered an adult, leading to misuse of this interpretation to justify child marriages. This ruling sends a powerful message of justice for vulnerable minority girls in Pakistan.”
“The High Court has previously ruled to raise the legal marriage age for girls from 16 to 18. However, legislation is still pending in Parliament,” he added. “Pakistan has ratified the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child and is therefore obligated to align its domestic laws with international standards.”
“Ariha and her family are fortunate but there are many others who are still waiting for justice. Some parents have abandoned the struggle altogether after repeated failures and intimidation.”
BACKGROUND
On 20 January three Muslims abducted Ariha Gulzar at gunpoint from her home in Okara, Punjab province. Her mother Sumera Gulzar, a member of the Catholic church, said her daughter was abducted by a 40-year-old neighbour and two accomplices after they forced their way into the family home. She said she tried to stop them but they forcibly took Ariha away in a white car.
Sumera said, “The next day I received a phone call from [the abductor] in which he threatened to rape Ariha and to sell her to sex traffickers if we pursued the matter.”
Ariha’s father Gulzar Masih described the neighbour as “a known criminal of our area. We are very poor and weak people. We didn’t have the resources to bribe the police or go to court.”
Abduction, forced conversion and marriage of young girls is an ongoing problem for Christian and Hindu families in Pakistan, the perpetrators being much older Muslim men who are often already married with children. Police are slow to register reports of abductions and when cases come to court judges often ignore documentary evidence of the children’s ages and rule on the basis of Sharia law, which allows for very young marriage, rather than federal law. The young girls, who are often pressurised to record false statements in favour of their new “husbands”, are handed back to them and lose contact with their families.
(CLAAS, Edge Foundation, Christian Daily International-Morning Star News)
Photo credit: Edge Foundation