A high court in Pakistan has ordered police to recover two Christian sisters, ages 13 and 18, who were forcibly converted to Islam and married to their abductors, the family’s attorney said.
After police had refused to make efforts to recover Neha Javed and her older sister Saneha Javed following their July 23 kidnapping in Pattoki Tehsil, Kasur District, Lahore High Court Justice Muhammad Tariq Nadeem on Wednesday (Sept. 11) ordered the police chief of Kasur District, Punjab Province, to recover them and submit a report, attorney Sumera Shafique said.
The court ordered the two girls to be recovered from Muslims Muhammad Zain and Muhammad Ali, who are brothers, Shafique said.
“The family was sleeping in their two-room quarters on July 23 when Zain and Ali accompanied by some unidentified accomplices entered their home, locked the door of the parents’ room from the outside and abducted the girls,” Shafique told Christian Daily International-Morning Star News.
She said the impoverished Catholic family registered a First Information Report (FIR) with police and began searching for their daughters.
“The police did not cooperate with them, and they were left with no other option but to search for their daughters on their own,” she said.
On July 29, the family received images of Islamic conversion certificates and Nikahnamas (Islamic marriage certificates) of both girls from a relative’s phone, the attorney said. The 13-year-old Neha was shown as 19 years old in the marriage certificate, while 18-year-old Saneha’s age was declared as 21.
“The perpetrators lived in the same neighborhood and ostensibly targeted the girls because of their poverty and vulnerability due to their Christian faith,” Shafique said. “The police’s attitude is also regrettable, because they made no effort to find the girls. The court has now directed the Kasur District Police Officer to recover the girls, so we are hoping that the local police will now take some action against the accused.”
As commonly happens in such cases, relatives of the suspects have demanded they withdraw the case and forget about the sisters – and attacked their father when he confronted them, said the sisters’ mother, Sumera Bibi.
“The accused’s family is pressuring us to stop pursuing the matter and even attacked my husband with an axe when he confronted them,” Bibi told Christian Daily International-Morning Star News. “How can we let them destroy the lives of our daughters? Neha is only 13, while her abductor-husband is more than double her age.”
Her husband suffers from various illnesses, and the stress of the crimes against their daughters is further deteriorating his health, she said.
“We kept pleading with police for recovering our daughters, but they did not act,” she said. “Whenever we received information from someone about my daughters’ whereabouts, my husband and eldest son would immediately go to those cities to look for them. We had to take loans to meet the travel expenses, and we are now under a huge debt.”
Bibi said she held out hope that the court would deliver justice.
“We haven’t seen our daughters since the time they were taken from our home,” she said. “We are extremely worried about them and want them back at all costs.”
The couple has six other children.
Criminalizing Underage Marriages
In a bid to criminalize underage marriages, the Punjab provincial government on April 25 submitted the Punjab Child Marriage Restraint Act, 2024 in the Punjab Provincial Assembly, which would raise the legal age for marriage for both males and females to 18 years. Previously the legal age for marriage for girls in Punjab was 16.
Under the proposed bill, anyone who marries a girl or boy under 18 or arranges such a marriage – including parents or guardians – would face two to three years in prison and a fine of between 100,000 Pakistani rupees ($360 USD) and 200,000 rupees ($720 USD).
At the time of marriage registration, the marriage solemnizer, secretary of the union council and marriage registrar would check the Computerized National Identity Card (CNIC) of the girl or boy, passport, educational certificate or other documents proving both are at least 18 years old. Attested copies of these documents would be required to be attached with the application of marriage certificate.
Rights activists say that, though raising the legal marriage age to 18 years for both boys and girls will help in preventing child marriages, certain amendments are required to ensure that minority girls also get due coverage of the law. Such amendments would override all “special” laws and maxims related to determining a girl’s age of maturity, they say, including sharia (Islamic law) that allows girls attaining puberty to be considered adults.
Pakistan ranked seventh on Open Doors' 2024 World Watch List of the most difficult places to be a Christian, as it was the previous year.
