Missing Christian Girls Married Off To Muslims

Police stall efforts to recover children.

8/24/07 Pakistan (Compass Direct News) – Two Pakistani Christian children have converted to Islam and married Muslim men after they went missing earlier this month in Faisalabad , according to apparently falsified marriage certificates delivered to their families.

The certificate for the missing 16-year-old girl indicates that the marriage took place 12 days before her disappearance, and the other certificate puts the missing 11-year-old’s age at 18.

Police seem to be stalling efforts to recover the minors, prompting the girls’ lawyer to bring a case against officers in the Punjab city of Faisalabad this week.

“This type of incident is increasing in Faisalabad ,” a representative of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan told Compass from Faisalabad today.

When Zunaira Rasheed, 11, disappeared from her home in Faisalabad’s Warispura neighborhood on August 5, her mother was at first reluctant to go to the police, she said. Abida Parveen said she was worried that news of the disappearance might ruin her daughter’s “honor” and with it her chance of marrying, according to Pakistani journalist Qaiser Felix of Asia News.

While searching for her daughter, Parveen was approached by a Muslim man from the neighborhood, Rana Azher, who offered to help her in exchange for money.

“We saw your daughter going in a rickshaw with Muhammad Adnan,” Rana Azher told Parveen.

The Christian mother immediately went to Adnan’s home but was not allowed inside. Desperate for help, Parveen eventually scraped together 12,000 rupees (US$200) to pay Azher to negotiate with Adnan on her behalf.

Azher soon produced a copy of a certificate of marriage between Rasheed and Adnan but failed to do anything more.

“Unfortunately, I found out too late that those men who said they would help me only want money,” Parveen said in an August 22 Asia News article. “I have sold all I have, but it wasn’t enough, and now I am alone.”

The August 9 certificate, signed by Muslim cleric Kareem Muhammad Ramazan in Lahore , gave Rasheed’s name as Fatma Bibi (indicating her conversion to Islam) and stated her age as 18.

Despite the name and age difference, Rasheed’s family said they were not in doubt that the Fatma Bibi indicated in the certificate was the same person as their daughter because the certificate gives Rasheed’s address and father’s name.

Parveen eventually registered a report with local police, but law enforcement officers have yet to recover her daughter.

The Christian woman, who works as a maid in Muslim homes to support her four children, said that Rasheed had been engaged to be married to a relative.

“They are a very poor family from a backward area, and there is a practice among backwards and poor people to get their children married early,” journalist Felix told Compass.

He said it was not clear whether this marriage was actually scheduled to take place any time in the near future.

Kidnapping Accusation

In a second incident last week, Shamaila Tabassum, 16, disappeared after telling relatives she was on her way to the hospital with several Muslim neighbors to visit her father, whom she said had suffered a serious accident.

The Christian girl’s family became worried after her supposedly hospitalized father arrived home from work in perfect health.

Her uncles said that they had passed Tabassum while they were bicycling home from work on the afternoon of August 16, approximately three kilometers (1.8 miles) from their home in Faisalabad ’s Elahiabad neighborhood.

Seeing her uncles, Tabassum exited the Toyota Corolla she was riding in, told them that her father had been admitted to the city’s Allied Hospital, and then left in the car. According to the uncles, three Muslim neighbors – Mohammad Mazhar, his sister Naseem Akhter and a cousin named Zheer Ahmad – as well as an unknown fourth man, were in the car with Tabassum.

Worried for his daughter’s safety, Tabassum’s father visited Mazhar’s house that evening, lawyer Khalil Tahir said. “[Mazhar’s] house was locked,” Tahir said, and Mazhar’s relatives claimed not to know his whereabouts.

On August 18, Tabassum’s father registered a case with police at Faisalabad ’s Sadar police station, accusing Mazhar of kidnapping his daughter. He indicated in the police report that he was worried Mazhar would attempt to force his daughter to convert, said lawyer Tahir.

On Wednesday evening (August 22), a former head of the Elahiabad union council visited Tabassum’s home to deliver a certificate of her marriage to Mazhar.

“Now your daughter has converted to Islam, so there is no need to go to court,” Rana Javed told the girl’s father.

According to the certificate, Tabassum and Mazhar were married by a Muslim sheikh in the city of Sargodha , 60 kilometers (37 miles) north of Faisalabad . But the document was dated August 4, fully 12 days before Tabassum’s disappearance.

“This is obviously a falsified document, because on August 4 she was at home,” Tahir said.

The document also carried a new Muslim name for Tabassum, indicating her conversion to Islam.

Though Pakistanis under the age of 18 cannot carry out legal transactions – including conversion and marriage – without the consent of their guardian, prejudiced lower court judges often turn a blind eye to the law in order to favor Muslims in cases against Christians, Tahir said.

The Christian lawyer said he had agreed to take both cases pro bono because both families are extremely poor.

Tahir said that the investigation was delegated to Assistant Sub-inspector Mohammad Ameen, who has yet to register the criminal case under Pakistan ’s penal code.

“The Station House Officer [SHO] is legally bound to register the case,” Tahir commented.

The lawyer filed a written petition against Sadar SHO Mohammad Zafar on Monday (August 20) for failing to have his subordinate follow through on the investigation. Zafar has been called to appear before Additional District and Sessions Judge Gabriel Francis on August 31, Tahir said.

“Many Pakistani Christians are poor, and this is the reason that they are being targeted,” writer Felix told Compass. “There are many other individual cases of forced conversion that go unreported because of their poverty.”

Felix said that impoverished Christians are often unable to pursue their cases in court when their interests conflict with those of more influential Muslims.

Amina Zaman of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan told Compass that three priests from the area recently reported a growing number of incidents similar to that of the disappearance, conversion and questionable marriages of Tabassum and Rasheed.

“It is increasing in Pakistan and especially in Faisalabad ,” Zaman said.

Christians make up 1.5 percent of Pakistan ’s population, according to the U.S. State Department’s latest report on religious freedom.