New Delhi: In Pakistan, the abduction, forced conversion, and marriage of minor Hindu and Christian girls has emerged as one of South Asia’s most persistent human rights crises.
Beneath the political narratives of reform and international cooperation lies a grim reality: minority girls continue to disappear, their identities erased, and their families silenced.
This ongoing tragedy challenges the very credibility of global commitments to gender equality and human rights.
Data-backed reality
A recent report titled ‘Pakistan: Gender-based Violence against minor girls of Hindus, Sikhs, and Christians’, published by the Global Hindu Temple Network, presents verified data on hundreds of cases involving abduction and forced conversion of minor girls between 2021 and 2025.
The report highlights how religious identity compounds gender vulnerability in Pakistan, where girls from Hindu and Christian communities are often abducted from their homes, converted under coercion, and married to much older men.
The data indicate that the majority of victims are below 16 years of age, and in over 70 per cent of documented cases, the police either refused to register First Information Reports (FIRs) or later diluted them under pressure. In many instances, victims were presented in court claiming to have “willingly converted,” a narrative often extracted under duress.
In Sindh and Punjab, the two provinces with the highest number of recorded cases, the nexus between religious extremism and patriarchal dominance sustains a climate of fear.
The report also notes a concerning institutional apathy, where state and law enforcement agencies not only fail to protect victims but, in some cases, facilitate the perpetrators. This impunity perpetuates a cycle of fear, forcing minority families into silence or migration.
Raising issue at global platforms
Drawing from these findings, the President of the Global Hindu Temple Network America, Mohinder Gulati, recently raised the issue during the World Bank Civil Society Organisation (CSO) Forum and in communication with the Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
He questioned how Pakistan continues to receive billions in development funding while ignoring gross violations of its minority girls’ fundamental rights.
This reality even brings into question Pakistan’s commitments to international conventions on women’s and children’s rights, including CEDAW and the Convention on the Rights of the Child.
Mohinder Gulati’s intervention highlighted a stark contradiction: while international institutions publicly champion gender equality, their funding practices often fail to account for structural discrimination in recipient countries.
If gender justice remains confined to metrics and not moral accountability, the very essence of “inclusive development” loses meaning.
Silence becomes complicity
Pakistan’s treatment of its minorities is not an isolated domestic issue. It is an indicator of systemic gender injustice. The absence of global outrage reflects a troubling hierarchy in human rights advocacy, where the faith of victims determines the urgency of response.
International institutions cannot claim moral leadership while turning away from the abduction and violation of young girls based on their religion.
Development aid that overlooks such abuse does not empower; it enables. Funds allocated for women’s empowerment and education cannot absolve a state that denies its minorities the right to dignity and protection.
As the report underscores, until justice for these girls becomes part of the gender dialogue, every statement on “equity and inclusion” will ring hollow.
Call for moral and institutional accountability
This issue demands more than diplomatic caution; it requires moral clarity. The World Bank and IMF must review their gender policy enforcement in countries like Pakistan, ensuring that funding aligns with tangible progress on human rights benchmarks.
Monitoring must go beyond token representation and include independent audits of gender-linked violations, especially those affecting minorities.
The silence surrounding abducted Hindu and Christian girls is not just Pakistan’s failure; it is a failure of global conscience. As long as institutions measure progress through numbers and not through justice, aid will remain complicit in oppression.
(Dr. Vinay Nalwa is the co-author of the report “Pakistan: Gender-based Violence against minor girls of Hindus, Sikhs, and Christians,” published by the Global Hindu Temple Network.)
(IANS)
