UN human rights consultants on Thursday referred to as on Pakistan to make authorized modifications in mild of the continued vulnerability of minority ladies and women to pressured marriages and non secular conversions.
UN particular rapporteurs have demanded that Pakistan elevate the authorized age of marriage for women to 18 as a deterrent in opposition to exploitation within the 96 p.c Muslim nation.
“The publicity of younger ladies and women belonging to non secular minority communities to such heinous human rights violations and impunity for such crimes can now not be tolerated or justified,” they mentioned in an announcement issued in Geneva.
They expressed concern that pressured marriages and non secular conversions of women from minority faiths, together with Christianity, “have been upheld by courts, typically invoking non secular regulation to justify conserving victims with their captors moderately than with the ability to return them to their dad and mom”.
“Perpetrators typically escape duty and police dismiss crimes underneath the guise of 'love marriages',” they mentioned.
Specialists confused that little one, early and compelled marriage can’t be justified on non secular or cultural grounds. They identified that underneath worldwide regulation, consent is irrelevant if the sufferer was a baby underneath 18. At the moment, Sindh is the one province in Pakistan the place the authorized age of marriage for each women and boys is eighteen, whereas in Punjab, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan, the minimal for women remains to be 16.
“A girl's proper to decide on her companion and enter into marriage freely is key to her life, dignity and equality as a human being and have to be protected and supported by regulation,” the consultants mentioned.
They emphasised the necessity for provisions that annul, nullify or divorce pressured marriages, with due regard for the ladies and women affected, and guarantee victims have entry to justice, redress, safety and ample help.
However the proper of youngsters to freedom of thought, conscience and faith in accordance with Article 14 of the Conference on the Rights of the Youngster, altering one's faith or perception should always be free, with out coercion or undue inducement, they mentioned.
“Pakistani authorities should enact and rigorously implement legal guidelines to make sure that marriages happen solely with the free and full consent of the supposed spouses and that the minimal age of marriage be raised to 18, together with for women,” the consultants mentioned. “Ladies and women have to be handled with out discrimination, together with these belonging to the Christian and Hindu communities.”
They highlighted instances of pressured non secular conversions, together with that of Mishal Rasheed, who was kidnapped at gunpoint from her dwelling in Punjab province as she was making ready for college in 2022. Mishal was sexually assaulted, forcibly transformed to Islam, and compelled to marry her captor. Additionally they famous that final month, on March 13, a 13-year-old Christian lady was allegedly kidnapped, forcibly transformed to Islam and married to her captor after her age of 18 was recorded on the wedding certificates.
UN consultants mentioned Christian and Hindu women stay notably susceptible to pressured non secular conversions, abduction, little one trafficking, little one, early and compelled marriage, home servitude and sexual violence.
The group included the Particular Rapporteur on freedom of faith or perception, Nazil Ghane; Particular Rapporteur on Minority Affairs Nicolas Levrat; Siobhan Mullally, Particular Rapporteur on trafficking in human beings and Tomoya Obokata, Particular Rapporteur on modern types of slavery. The consultants had been additionally joined by the Chair of the Working Group on Discrimination in opposition to Ladies and Ladies, Dorothy Estrada Tanck, and dealing group members – Claudia Flores, Ivana Krstic, Haina Lu and Laura Nyirinkindi.
Particular Rapporteurs are a part of the Particular Procedures of the UN Human Rights Council. Particular Procedures, the most important group of impartial consultants within the UN human rights system, is a generic title for impartial fact-finding and monitoring mechanisms that handle both particular nation conditions or thematic points in all elements of the world.
UN consultants have urged Pakistan to convey perpetrators to justice, implement current authorized protections in opposition to little one, early and compelled marriage, abduction and trafficking of minority women, and uphold the nation's worldwide human rights obligations.
A report launched in November 2021 by the All-Celebration Parliamentary Group on Freedom of Faith and Perception claimed that roughly 1,000 women from different non secular teams in Pakistan had been kidnapped and forcibly transformed.
Tehmina Arora, Asia Director of Advocacy for the Alliance Defending Freedom Worldwide, mentioned a uniform marriage age throughout Pakistan, together with a vigilant judiciary, will shield the rights and freedoms of younger women throughout the nation, particularly these from the susceptible Christian group.
“Yearly in Pakistan, hundreds of underage women are forcibly transformed and married off to their abductors,” Arora mentioned. “Nobody ought to must endure the horrors of kidnapping, pressured marriage and compelled conversion.”
Pakistan has confronted international scorn for its shaky commitments to defending non secular minorities and the Pakistani authorities's unwillingness to unequivocally condemn extremism. Nonetheless, this has not slowed the momentum of oppression directed at Christians, Hindus and Ahmadis, who’re among the many most marginalized and persecuted teams within the nation.
Regardless of makes an attempt to take action, notably in provincial assemblies, liberal Pakistani lawmakers have been unable to move laws in opposition to pressured conversions and additional modification of Pakistan's little one marriage legal guidelines. These two points are carefully associated and additional complicate makes an attempt to enact such legal guidelines.
As within the earlier 12 months, Pakistan was ranked seventh on the checklist of essentially the most troublesome locations for Christianity within the Open Doorways 2024 World Watch Checklist.
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