Underage minorities in Pakistan being forced to marry & convert religion, reveals report

Minorities in Pakistan are the main victims of forced conversions as there have been numerous complaints of underaged Hindus and Christian girls being forced to get married or to change their religion in the country, a report published in The News stated. The elaborative report further stated that while there is an international obligation on the Imran Khan administration to fulfil, minorities in the country are facing numerous challenges including dearth of economic opportunities. The province of Sindh is worse affected with multiple reports of underaged Hindu girls being forcibly married. 

According to the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics, Christian, Hindus, and Qadiani make up the main minorities. A discreet report published earlier this year by Voa News said that minorities were undercounted in the official census that was released by the government in May. It said that major undercounting was done in provinces of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Balochsitan and Sindh. 

This comes a day after Pakistan’s Ministry of Religious Affairs presented a draft bill to prevent the ongoing forced marriages in the country. The proposed bill does not oppose religious conversions but states that it should only be post 18 years of age. However, what is worth mentioning is that the discussion failed to encompass any representatives from the minority communities or victims of the aforementioned crime. 

Sufferings of religious minorities continue 

The sufferings of religious minorities continue to persist in Pakistan as there have been several incidents of violence, abduction of girls from the minority community, forceful conversions, or the vandalism of religious institutions reported frequently. The persecution of religious minorities has been manifested in various forms of targeted violence, mass murders, extrajudicial killings, abduction, rapes, forced conversion, etc. Pakistani Hindus, Christians, Sikhs, Ahmadiyyas, and Shias have been the most persecuted minorities in Pakistan which have suffered religious hatred at the hands of the majority. Earlier this month, Union Minister Gajendra Singh Shekhawat posted a video of miscreants vandalising the Shri Ganesh temple in Rahimyar Khan district of Pakistan, and stressed the need to protect the minorities, who deal with these situations on 'a daily basis'. 

Image: AP