Three Christian girls who were abducted by Muslims from their homes in Punjab province in January are still missing. Ariha Gulzar, Saneha Sharif and Saba Shafique are aged between 12 and 14, and their families have not seen them since they were taken. Ariha’s distraught parents are pictured, left.
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.
Ariha Gulzar
On 20 January three Muslims abducted Ariha Gulzar (12) 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.
“I immediately contacted [the neighbour’s] family, and they asked me to give them two to three days to recover my daughter from his custody,” she told Christian Daily International-Morning Star News. “The next day I received a phone call from [him] in which he threatened to rape Ariha and to sell her to sex traffickers if we pursued the matter.”
Ariha’s father Gulzar Masih explained that he and his wife initially tried to pursue their daughter themselves through the neighbour’s family because they were too poor for other options – they even had to take Ariha out of school last year because of financial constraints. Gulzar described the neighbour as “a known criminal of our area” and told Christian Daily International-Morning Star News, “We are very poor and weak people. We didn’t have the resources to bribe the police or go to court.”
On 24 January Gulzar and Sumera were shocked to learn that the neighbour’s family had left home and disappeared. They have appealed to senior police officials and the Punjab government for Ariha’s recovery and are very concerned that the suspect will force her to convert to Islam and marry him or sell her to sex traffickers.
Saneha Sharif
On 9 January five Muslims abducted Saneha Sharif (14) outside her home in Sialkot, Punjab province. Her father Sharif Masih told Christian Daily International-Morning Star News, “Saneha was lured out of the house by a Muslim girl whose family had recently moved to our neighbourhood. A neighbour, Rehan Razaque, saw her being bundled into a van by the accused, which included two women, one of whom was the mother of the girl who had brought Saneha out of her home.”
Sharif Masih, who works as a sweeper at a wedding marquee and is a member of the Brethren church, said the suspects included a man who had been making unwelcome advances toward his daughter, which she discouraged.
Police registered a case and arrested two accused but Sharif said that despite his repeated pleas they were making no effort to trace Saneha or arrest the other accused, leaving the family in fear that she will be forced to convert to Islam and marry the main suspect. He added that his wife had become ill since their daughter’s disappearance and required hospital treatment twice.
Saba Shafique
On 5 January Saba Shafique (12) was abducted from outside her home in Lahore, Punjab province by a married, 35-year-old Muslim neighbour who took her away to Sindh Province where he forcibly converted her to Islam and married her.
Saba’s father Shafique Masih, a Catholic who works as a painter after retiring from the army, said the abductor prepared a fake marriage certificate on 8 January that stated Saba’s age as 18, though her birth certificate states she was born on 16 May 2012, making her 12 years and 9 months old. “Saba’s physical appearance also doesn’t match the age stated in the alleged marriage and Islamic conversion certificates,” he told Christian Daily International-Morning Star News.
Shafique said that police were making no effort to recover her, saying: “The police told me that they needed official permission to go to Sindh province to recover Saba, but three weeks have passed and there’s no progress in the matter. I’m visiting the police station on a daily basis to plead with them to act, but it seems now that they are not serious in finding my minor daughter.”
He said that the abductor had filed a petition in the Hyderabad Sessions Court on behalf of Saba seeking legal protection for their “marriage”, a common tactic used by perpetrators to prevent families reclaiming their abducted daughters.
“I’m sure that when Saba is rescued from [his] illegal custody, she will state the truth about her abduction,” Shafique said. “She is an innocent child who has been forced to give statements in favour of the accused under duress.”
Increasing abductions
A Christian member of the Punjab Assembly, Ejaz Augustine, has expressed concern over the increasing number of abductions of Christian girls in Punjab province. “Forced conversions and marriages of minor girls have become a serious crisis for the Christian community,” he said. “A bill criminalising child marriages is pending in the Punjab Assembly since April 2024, but it is very unfortunate that despite our repeated demands for its passage, there’s been no movement in this regard.”
The bill will raise the minimum marriage age for girls from 16 to 18 in Punjab, but younger marriage is permitted by Sharia law and this applies to Christian girls who are forced to convert to Islam after abduction.
(Christian Daily International-Morning Star News)
Photo: Joseph Janssen for Christian Daily International-Morning Star News