The disappearance of a 14-year-old Christian girl in Pakistan has once again shed light on the issue of forced conversions and coerced marriages affecting minority women and girls in the country. Nisha Bibi, a domestic worker, was reportedly taken by a married Muslim man who exploited her situation, forcibly converted her to Islam, and married her, shocking her father, Abbas Masih, a daily wage laborer.
The incident involved the presentation of alleged conversion and marriage documents to Nisha Bibi’s family, claiming that she had willingly converted and married earlier. However, her father denounced these documents as fabrications aimed at protecting the perpetrator from legal consequences. Reports indicate that forced conversions and coerced marriages of minority women and girls, often minors between 12 and 17 years old, are prevalent in Pakistan, where gender-based violence and religious discrimination intersect.
In a similar case from April, a 16-year-old Christian girl named Jia Liaqat was kidnapped while her parents were working in the fields. Despite receiving threats from a man in Dubai and facing police inaction, Jia was allegedly married online to a Muslim man in the UAE. These incidents reveal a troubling pattern of abduction, coercion, fabricated documentation, and judicial validation, with religious conversion being exploited to conceal sexual violence.
Concerns have been raised by bishops in Pakistan regarding the inconsistent application of laws prohibiting marriage under the age of 18, particularly in cases involving abducted Christian girls. The Pakistan Catholic Bishops’ Conference (PCBC) criticized the selective implementation of legislation, highlighting cases where courts have upheld marriages of Christian minors, leading to discontent within the minority community over perceived judicial biases.
