Catholic girl escapes forced marriage in Pakistan
The abduction of Christian girls who are forced to “convert” to Islam and placed in “marriages” against their will is a major problem in Pakistan. ACN spoke to one girl who managed to escape her captors.
By ACN Staff
Psychotherapy with girls who were abducted and placed in forced marriages. (Credit: Aid to the Church in Need)
Christians in Pakistan face daily discrimination and persecution because of their faith. Christians face unjust persecution under Pakistan’s blasphemy laws and are targeted by Islamist terrorists. Without a shadow of a doubt, one of the most disturbing trends in the persecution of Christians in Pakistan over the last few years has been the targeting of Christian girls, who have been kidnapped, forced to convert to Islam and then placed in “marriages” against their will. By some estimates, around 2,000 girls are kidnapped each year. By forcing the girls to “convert” to Islam, the kidnappers make it less likely for a court to agree to return a Christian girl to her family as she will almost certainly return to Christianity.
Kinza in the Christian True Spirit shelter for girls who escaped forced kidnappings. (Credit: Aid to the Church in Need).
Kamran Chaudhry, working for ACN, spoke to Kinza Sindhu, a 14-year-old Catholic girl who was the victim of a kidnapping and forced marriage. The interview was conducted in Kinza’s native Urdu language.
Kinza was abducted by five men from her home in Lahore on 19 September 2022. The group were led by a man who frequently visited the Catholic family’s landlord who lived downstairs. Kinza described how she was abducted:
“My parents, who are both cooks, were away at work. My elder sister was in the kitchen when I heard a knock on the front door at around 12.00 p.m. When I opened the door, the armed men pulled me out and pushed me inside a van. I recognised two of them, but the rest were unknown. One of them made me take a sedative, and I slipped into unconsciousness. Later one of the young guys I knew raped me at gunpoint at an unknown location.”
Shocking as this was, it was not the end of Kinza’s ordeal. Despite what was happening to her, Kinza remained steadfast in her faith in God, as she explains:
“I kept praying in my heart, sometimes I would recite the Rosary. The next day the guy who raped me brought a bearded man to register the nikah [Muslim marriage]. I told them I am a Christian and refused to repeat the Arabic verses. They told me to just listen quietly. They made me sign a white paper and took my fingerprints. They also made videos of the ceremony on a phone.”
Kinza’s parents had reported her kidnapped at the same police station where the kidnappers submitted the nikahnama (an Islamic marriage contract) and told the police that Kinza had converted to Islam. Thankfully, Kinza’s family were able to bring the kidnappers to court. Kinza denied her conversion to Islam at the Lahore High Court, and the judge allowed her to return to her family on 22 October 2022.
Kinza explained that the ordeal did bring her close to God, but she is still frightened:
“I can’t shake off what happened to me. My story is like the parable of the Prodigal Son. Now I am back home. I feel I am closer to God. I had lost all hope. It was God who sent help in the shape of lawyers who fought the case and brought me back. I am worried for my family, still receiving threatening calls from unknown numbers. The callers are urging them to return me to them or face a beating after being stripped naked. They are planning to move to another neighborhood. I worry about them.”
Kinza dropped out of school in 2019 and hopes to return and finish her education. She said that she wants to do a job like being a police officer, someone who helps other people.
ACN helps families like Kinza’s fight court cases to have their daughters returned to them and provides support to the girls and their families after these horrific ordeals. ACN also supports the Peace and Justice Commission of the Pakistani Catholic Bishops’ Conference to lobby and advocate for new laws and greater protections for Christian girls. Please donate to support us in this vital work and help girls like Kinza.