She was drugged by a friend and taken away while her parents slept upstairs. The next day the conversion to Islam and the marriage were registered, while the police did not take up the complaint. Human Rights Focus Pakistan is following the case: “Every year there are more than 1,000 stories like this.”
Faisalabad () – A 15-year-old Christian teenager, Meerab Palous, who lives in the Muzafar Colony, in Faisalabad, was kidnapped and forced to marry and convert to Islam by a Muslim acquaintance in a new case of this plague that persecutes women. minorities in Pakistan. On the night of June 22, Meerab was at her house with her friend and her Muslim neighbor Gulnaz. When Meerab’s family went to sleep, Gulnaz gave Meerab a glass of water mixed with drugs and sleeping pills: when the girl fell asleep, she called her stepbrother Muhammad Asif and they took her away. Around midnight the parents realized her absence and started looking for her, even reaching Gulnaz’s house, but they did not know anything until neighbors told them that they had seen Gulnaz, Muhammad and another person put her in a car in state of unconsciousness.
Gulnaz’s family then told the father that Meerab should convert to Islam and marry Muhammad Asif. The parents went to the police but they did not agree to register the complaint, assuming that the teenager had acted of her own free will. The couple turned to Human Rights Focus Pakistan (HRFP) for help, which took up the problem. Meanwhile, the authors submitted a conversion certificate and a marriage certificate dated June 23 to the Faisalabad court, falsely stating that Meerab had married voluntarily. The parents challenge the document that also states that the girl would be 18 years old, when in fact she is a minor.
Naveed Walter, President of Human Rights Focus Pakistan (HRFP), stated that this new case demonstrates once again the alarming increase in abductions, conversions and forced marriages. “The government – he says – should take serious measures to protect Christian and Hindu girls, who are seen as easy targets. According to the latest estimates, there are more than 1,000 such incidents each year and most of them go unreported. We are accompanying the victim’s family – he concludes – and we will do everything possible to get them justice “.
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