UN body slams Pakistan over 'discrimination' of religious minorities

A UN body has slammed Pakistan over discriminatory legislation claiming that it has empowered people with "extremist mindsets" to carry out attacks on religious minorities. The United Nations' Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) which is a commission of the United Nations Economic and Social Council released a 47-page report titled, ''Pakistan-Religious freedom under attack'' in December. The report has expressed concerns over the increasing "weaponisation and politicisation" of the blasphemy laws and the anti-Ahmadiyya legislation which are being used not only to persecute religious minorities but also to gain political ground. It further mentioned that the Christian and Hindu communities in Pakistan are "particularly vulnerable", especially women and girls. The commission has asked the government to take more effective steps to prevent sectarian violence and to hold the perpetrators of religious attacks to account.

The report read, "Each year hundreds are abducted and forced to convert and marry Muslim men. Victims have little or no hope of being returned to their families due to the serious threats and intimidation from abductors against the girls and their families. This is compounded by the lack of police will to take action, weaknesses in the judicial process and discrimination from both police and judiciary towards religious minority victims".

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UN points at Pakistan's Blasphemy laws

The CSW cited several prominent examples to substantiate that minorities in the country are portrayed as second class citizens. Amongst them was the instance of Ramesh Kumar Malhi, a Hindu veterinary surgeon from Mirpurkhas in Sindh who was accused of blasphemy for wrapping medicines in pages containing verses from the Quran in May 2019. Back then, protestors burned down his clinic and other shops belonging to the Hindu community. Blasphemy laws in Pakistan, which criminalise anyone who insults Islam, are often misused to lodge false cases against the religious minorities and are a "source of controversy and suffering", the report said.

"The prolonged misuse of the blasphemy laws over the last three decades, combined with the rise of extremism, has had a damaging normative impact on social harmony. The sensitive nature of blasphemy cases serves to heighten religious fervour and has created an environment of mob violence in which people take matters into their own hands, often with fatal consequences".

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Forced conversions, physical abuse

Besides this, instances of forced marriages and forced conversions are prevalent among Christian and Hindu girls and women, particularly in the Punjab and Sindh provinces, claimed the CSW report. Moreover, many girls are under the age of 18 years when they go through such atrocities. The report cites that Hindu girls and women are systematically targeted because they come from lower economic backgrounds in rural areas, and are generally under-educated. The commission interviewed children from religious minorities in 2017. At that time, the children admitted that they were "routinely subjected to severe physical and psychological ill-treatment, including being segregated, bullied, teased, insulted and beaten on multiple occasions, by both teachers and classmates". The report also raised the issue of threats to human rights defenders in Pakistan. 

"HRDs are subject to harassment, targeted attacks and enforced disappearance, with little protection provided by the government".

(With inputs from ANI)

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