ISLAMABAD: Neither the system nor the state is responding to the suffering of women from religious minorities and the situation is also being exploited by organised gangs in China, the People’s Commission for Minorities’ Rights (PCMR) said on Tuesday.

“The issue of forced conversions was not dealt as per the law even in the courts, as none of the authorities bothered to verify the age of girls who went missing and later came out married to a Muslim and converted to Islam,” PCMR Chairman Peter Jacob said at a seminar on ‘Alleged Faith Conversion and Trafficking of Minority Women’ organised by PCMR and the Centre for Social Justice.

He said the commission has gathered the details of some 110 cases related to the abduction of girls and women who were converted to Islam.

Situation being exploited by organised gangs in China, PCMR says

“But the worst things is that 16 girls have shown up now who returned to their Hindu families, and these cases were not taken serious by those in authority when the incidents happened,” Mr Jacob said.

He added: “In one of the cases we probed, the Hindu family even had to buy the girl back from the abductors. This is where the authorities needed to maintain the writ of law.”

These women face several concerns, as under the law they are Muslim and married and cannot integrate into their communities again. In addition, what laws should apply to children if the woman is a mother, he asked.

The PCMR has devised parameters to identify people, particularly girls, who have converted of their free will and determine if there were any irregularities in the case.

The commission defined forced conversion cases as those in which the girl is below the age of 18, her going missing, getting married and converting were simultaneous, if there was a disconnect with her natural parents and if there are deviations from the law when the case comes to light.

In addition to discussing forced conversions, Mr Jacob also criticised respective authorities and governments for not taking the issue seriously.

He also linked it to the recent surge in fraudulent marriages of Pakistani girls by organised gangs in China.

A PCMR member, Saleem Iqbal, had tried to investigate this issue and found that 1,000 to 1,200 Pakistani women married Chinese men, of whom some 700 were Christian and between 300 and 500 were Muslim.

In both cases, the men had converted to Christianity or Islam and the marriages were mostly solemnised by fake Christian clerics.

Civil society worker Fatima Arif urged tolerance, and said that if any matter is raised by Muslims it is taken differently but when the same issue is taken up by a non-Muslim it is looked at with suspicion.

“Politics related to the issue dominated the concept of resolving the matter,” she said.

Imrana Komal, a media professional from Islamabad, said many issues are interlinked as a result of mismanaged systems and a lack of enforcement of existing laws, and women and girls are the worst sufferers.

“This so-called managed system was leading to suppression of girls and women even belonging to the Muslim communities in the country,” she said.

The PCMR announced that it will also take up amendments in Christian marriage and divorce laws, which were promulgated in 1872 and 1869, respectively, soon.

Published in Dawn, May 29th, 2019