Throughout the month of May, you will come face to face with the reality of persecution through the stories of seven courageous believers ICC helped rescue. They are not just distant headlines or statistics — they are real people, with real names, real suffering, and real faith. These are the “faces of the persecuted.”

05/22/2025 Pakistan (International Christian Concern) – On October 10, 2019, 14-year-old Huma Younus was taken from her home in Karachi while her parents were away. She was abducted, forced to convert to Islam, and coerced into marrying her captor, Abdul Jabbar. Despite her family’s desperate attempts to seek justice, the courts turned a blind eye to her suffering.

Huma’s parents, devout Christians, filed a police report challenging the legitimacy of her abduction, forced conversion, and marriage. They presented school and baptismal records proving that Huma was only 14 years old at the time, far below the legal age for marriage under Pakistan’s Sindh Child Marriage Restraint Act of 2013. ICC hosted a #JusticeforHuma petition that garnered over 3,000 signatures, calling on Pakistan to return Huma home to her parents. Despite the outcry, the Sindh High Court shockingly ruled that since Huma had already had her first menstrual cycle, her marriage was valid under Sharia law.

With this ruling, the justice system not only failed Huma but also set a dangerous precedent for other Christian and Hindu girls in Pakistan. Each year, an estimated 1,000 young girls from religious minority communities are kidnapped, forced into conversion, and married to their captors, according to a 2014 study by The Movement for Solidarity and Peace Pakistan. These crimes often go unpunished, as perpetrators manipulate religious biases to justify their actions.

Huma’s mother, Nageena Younus, has spent years pleading for her daughter’s return. She has faced threats, intimidation, and even warnings of blasphemy charges simply for seeking justice. “I am crying and begging in front of the courts, police, and ministers to ask for justice for my daughter,” she said. “How do you say that in Pakistan minorities enjoy full freedom? Our daughters are not safe.”

“Huma has telephoned her parents, telling them that she has now become pregnant as a result of the sexual violence she has been subjected to,” said Tabassum Yousaf, the lawyer representing Huma’s case. “Asked by her father if she could leave her abductor’s house and return to her parents’ home, she told him that she is not allowed to leave the house and that her life has become still more difficult, since she is now imprisoned within the walls of one room.”

Despite ongoing legal battles, Huma remains in captivity, a victim of an unjust system that fails to protect the most vulnerable. Her story is not just about one girl — it is about the countless others who suffer the same fate in silence.

As Christians around the world, we must not look away. We must advocate for Huma and for all the girls like her who have been stripped of their freedom, their families, and their faith. Join us in praying for Huma’s release and in standing against the injustice of forced conversions and marriages in Pakistan and beyond.

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