February 2, 2006

 Human rights activists say that the converted girls have been victimized threefold: they are poor, belong to a minority community, and are women, reports Zofeen Ebrahim

When Pakistani cricketer Yousuf Youhana, the only Christian in the national team, announced that he had embraced Islam to become Mohammad Yousuf last September, the conversion hit the headlines everywhere.

But the conversion of three Hindu girls, a few weeks later, went almost unnoticed in the media. There was little concern that the girls, Reena (21), Aishwariya (19), and Reema (17), from a lower middle-class family in Karachi’s Punjab Colony, had run away from home to become Muslims.

Their father Sanao Menghwar and mother Champa, who searched for them for two weeks, said they tried to lodge a complaint at the local police station but were not allowed to do so.

The police finally registered a complaint on October 22 on the intervention of a deputy superintendent of police. Three Muslim youths, identified as suspects by Menghwar, were apprehended, but later released on bail when the girls testified that they had only helped them convert.

Soon after, the family received an envelope containing affidavits signed by their daughters that stated they had converted to Islam of their own accord and had changed their names to Anam, Afshan and Nida respectively. Moreover, they said they didn’t want to stay with their parents, preferring to live in the madressah where they were being instructed.

The parents went to court, which ordered the police to arrange a meeting between the parents and the girls. The meeting took place in the presence of the police, the madressah instructor and a local woman. The girls were veiled in black, with only their eyes showing. The father later said that his youngest daughter’s eyes were bloodshot from weeping.

“It just doesn’t seem right, the whole episode reeks of human rights violation,” says Ayesha Mir, programme co-ordinator at the women’s rights organization, Shirkatgah, that has been closely monitoring the case. ‘’There are too many questions that remain unanswered,” she adds. “Why did the women seek shelter in a madressah? Why did they veil themselves in front of their parents? No Muslim woman does that.

Human Rights activists say the girls have been victimized threefold: they are poor, belong to a minority community, and are women.

In another case, three years ago, Sundri, a college student in Larkana, went to college one day, never to return home. Two weeks later, the police told her parents that she had eloped with a Muslim man and converted to Islam. The marriage did not last, neither did the other two. She died shortly after the third, in mysterious circumstances.

Anis Haroon, director of Aurat Foundation, a voluntary agency that works for the empowerment of women, says that conversions like these need to be discussed as a ‘constitutional issue, not a women’s rights or religious issue’.

“Minority women, in general, remain more vulnerable than men,” says Javed Jabbar, former information minister. He reckons their low status in the discriminatory caste system, compounded by the shrinking numbers of Hindus — a mere 2.7 million of the country’s 140 million people — makes women more susceptible. “The rights of Hindu women require special protection and enforcement by the state,” he said.

Tasneem Ahmar, director of UKS, which monitors the portrayal of women in the media, wonders why more women are converting. ‘’We have to find answers soon before these sorts of conversions become a legitimized practice,” she says.

A report by a Pakistani journalist in Mid-Day, an Indian tabloid, on November 15 says: “At least 19 such abduction cases occurred in Karachi alone, last year. A shaken Hindu community is marrying off their daughters as soon as they are of marriageable age or migrate to India, Canada or other nations,” he writes.

In the recent conversion, the lawyer representing the father of the three girls, Raja Hussain, says the girls were forced to marry their captors. He claimed they were kidnapped and harassed by the three youths. As evidence, he said the girls refused to respond when asked if they were going to marry the youths.

Article 20 of Pakistan’s Constitution protects the rights of citizens to practice their religion. “Then what is the basis or rationale for someone to exercise force against anyone for exercising his or her rights under these provisions?” wonders Justice Nasir Aslam Zahid, a retired Supreme Court judge.

“Apparently none,” he further adds. “The constitution neither approves, expressly or impliedly, nor permits any forcible conversion. Violation of others’ rights is not justifiable on any ground.”

He advises that every effort should be made to ascertain if the decision to convert was made voluntarily. It is necessary for police and judicial officers to be trained, and an atmosphere created where they can discharge their duties ‘without fear of retaliation’, he adds.

Haroon puts the blame squarely on the state. “It has been unable to guarantee civil rights to its people, specifically the minorities,” she says.

Jabbar believes it is everyone’s responsibility. “All citizens have an obligation to protect minorities and prevent coercive conversion. The overwhelming majority of Pakistanis are very tolerant and respectful of religious minorities,” he says.

When the Shirkatgah representatives visited Punjab Colony to investigate the conversion, they reported that the neighbourhood was very tense. “People were visibly scared and those members of the minority community, who had earlier told us that they would talk to us, refused to even recognize us when we went there the second time. The father who talked to us for 45 minutes, peered outside three times to check if someone was eavesdropping.”

‘’People are a little wary as they can be slapped with the blasphemy law and put behind bars,” explains Shirkatgah’s Mir. She thinks the apex court which provided the three women police protection, should do the same for their parents.

Pakistan’s blasphemy laws have been used to persecute non-Muslims. Minority religious groups have long sought to have the law scrapped.

Still, Menghwar refuses to give up hope of getting his daughters back. Neither does he believe their conversion was voluntary. He believes the girls said what they were told to say in court: “We have left our home and religion by ourselves and no one forced us into this...we used to listen to Islamic programmes on television and decided to convert to Islam.”

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