Islamabad: Pakistan’s religious minorities continue to face grave risk amid violence, lack of accountability and weak enforcement of laws protecting children and religious freedom, a report has stated, citing a minority rights activist who highlighted cases of minor girls allegedly being abducted, forcibly converted and married.
The assessment was made by Pakistani exiled activist Joseph Janssen, founder of Netherlands-based Voice for Justice, while marking the ‘International Day Commemorating the Victims of Acts of Violence Based on Religion or Belief’, according to a report in the Eurasia Review.
The International Day Commemorating the Victims of Acts of Violence Based on Religion or Belief is observed every year on August 22 following a United Nations resolution adopted in 2019.
Janssen called on Pakistani federal and provincial authorities to strengthen safeguards for religious minorities, hold perpetrators of religiously motivated violence accountable, enforce child-protection and child-marriage laws, and ensure equality before the law.
Raising alarm over cases involving minority girls abducted, forcibly converted and subsequently married across Pakistan, he cited the cases of 13-year-old Amber Nadeem, allegedly abducted from Faisalabad on June 12, 2026; 14-year-old Sataish Mariam from Chichawatni in January; and 12-year-old Mariam Asif from Vehari in April, the report mentioned.
Referring to Amber’s case, Janssen said she told a magistrate that the accused’s family had pressured and coached her to claim that she was an adult.
The minority rights activists said such cases raised concerns over age verification, the authenticity of documents, allegations of coercion and whether a minor was capable of giving a free and informed consent. He argued that a minor’s alleged consent must not override an independent assessment of the child’s age, safety, welfare and best interests.
Janssen further said that the cases reflected “broader concerns about the protection of minority children and the effectiveness of investigations and judicial processes in cases involving alleged abduction, conversion and marriage”, the report noted.
He said that Pakistani Christian families targeted in the August 16, 2023 Jaranwala attacks, in which mobs damaged 26 churches and more than 80 homes, continue to seek justice three years later.
“Jaranwala was an attack on an entire Christian community,” Eurasia Review quoted Janssen as saying. He also urged the Pakistani authorities to hold accountable those involved in planning, participating in, inciting or facilitating the violence.
He further called on the authorities to “translate constitutional guarantees of equality and freedom of religion into effective protection for citizens and accountability for human-rights violations,” the report stated.
(IANS)
