Report flags widespread abuse of minority girls and women in Pakistan

Washington, Sep 5 (SocialNews.XYZ) Minority women and girls in Pakistan continue to face severe gender-based persecution, including acid attacks, workplace harassment, blasphemy allegations and honour killings, while many remain vulnerable to sexual violence and exploitation in debt-bonded labour, particularly at brick kilns, a report has stated.

International sanctions against Pakistan over reported human rights abuses, including the abduction, forced conversion and forced marriage of women and minority girls, remain legally and politically possible under existing mechanisms, Turkish journalist Uzay Bulut wrote in American media outlet ‘PJ Media’.

“Individual countries or unions (like the United States, Canada, the UK, and the European Union) have global human rights sanction frameworks. These laws allow governments to freeze assets and impose travel bans on specific officials, judges, or police commanders complicit in abuses, without punishing the entire civilian population,” Bulut stated.

“International bodies can also restrict trade benefits. For example, the EU monitors human rights compliance under trade arrangements like the Generalized Scheme of Preferences Plus (GSP+), which gives developing countries duty-free access to markets. Violations can lead to the suspension of these trade preferences,” she added, highlighting the escalating violence against women across Pakistan.

Bulut noted that hundreds of Christian and Hindu girls and young women abducted by Muslim men continue to await the day they can return to their families.

She cited a report titled 'Stolen Girls' presented by the advocacy organisation Jubilee Campaign at the European Parliament on July 14, which documented 210 cases of abduction, forced religious conversion, child marriage and sexual violence against Christian and other minority girls across Pakistan between 2019 and 2025.

Referring to the report, Bulut said that the “cases reflect a broader pattern of abuse facilitated by fraudulent documentation, manipulation of legal processes and institutional failures”

The analyst further said that the findings found that the average age of victims was 12.8 years and the average age of perpetrators stood at 35.8 years. Several of the documented cases, she said, involved an age gap of more than 30 years between the victim and perpetrator.

Last week, a bipartisan group of US lawmakers urged Pakistan to protect an 18-year-old Christian woman, Neha Faqir, who was allegedly abducted, converted to Islam and denied a private meeting with her family.

Representative Chris Smith, Republican co-chair of the Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission, said the case of Neha Faqir raised serious concerns about religious freedom and the rights of minority women in Pakistan.

“The circumstances surrounding Neha Faqir’s disappearance and subsequent conversion raise profoundly troubling questions about her safety, freedom of religion, and ability to exercise her rights without coercion or intimidation,” said Smith.

Smith and 10 other members of Congress sent a letter on August 20 to Pakistan’s Federal Minister for Law and Justice, Azam Nazeer Tarar. They urged “the Government of Pakistan to take appropriate action to ensure a just resolution of this matter.”

The lawmakers asked Pakistani authorities to act through the country’s judicial system to “ensure Ms Faqir’s physical safety and well-being; ensure she has confidential access to independent legal counsel and an opportunity to communicate freely and privately with her family; and ensure that any further judicial proceedings are conducted under conditions that allow her to express her wishes freely and without intimidation or undue influence.”

Source: IANS