Yearly,1,000 girls converted in Pakistan

Washington : Around 1,000 Christian and Hindu women in Pakistan are forcibly converted to Islam and married to Muslim men every year, according to a report released by Movement for Solidarity and Peace in Pakistan on Monday, a news report said.

The report states the estimates of the incidence of forced marriage and conversion from 100 to 700 victim Christian girls and 300 Hindu girls per year, adding that the true scale of the problem is likely to be much greater, as a number of cases are never reported or do not progress through the law enforcement and legal systems, the report said.

The report has categorised the concurrent incidence of forced conversions and forced marriages as a distinct crime specific to minority Christian women in Punjab.

The research by MSP has lead to discovery of a distinguished pattern Christian girls usually between the ages of 12 and 25 are abducted, converted to Islam, and married to the abductor or third party.

The victim’s family usually files a FIR for abduction or rape with the local police station. The abductor, on behalf of the victim girl, files a counter FIR, accusing the Christian family of harassing the willfully converted girl.