U.N. human rights experts on April 11 called on Pakistan to make legal changes in light of continued vulnerability of women and girls of minority faiths to forced marriages and religious conversions.
The U.N. special rapporteurs demanded Pakistan raise the legal age for girls to marry to 18 as a deterrent against exploitation in the 96% Muslim country.
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“The exposure of young women and girls belonging to religious minority communities to such heinous human rights violations, and the impunity of such crimes, can no longer be tolerated or justified,” they said in a statement issued in Geneva.
They expressed concern that forced marriages and religious conversions of girls from minority faiths, including Christianity, were “validated by the courts, often invoking religious law to justify keeping victims with their abductors rather than allowing them to return them to their parents.”
“Perpetrators often escape accountability, with police dismissing crimes under the guise of ‘love marriages,’” they said.
Life, dignity and equality
The experts stressed that child, early and forced marriages could not be justified on religious or cultural grounds. They underscored that, under international law, consent was irrelevant when the victim was a child under the age of 18. At present Sindh is the only province in Pakistan where the legal marriage age for both girls and boys is 18 years, while in Punjab, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan, the minimum for girls is still 16 years.
“A woman’s right to choose a spouse and freely enter into marriage is central to her life, dignity and equality as a human being and must be protected and upheld by law,” the experts said.
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.
To read full report, click here.
EDITOR’S NOTE — This story was written and originally published by Morning Star News.
