Pakistan: A National Day Against Abducting Girls

Christian leaders in Pakistan have launched a National Day Against Abduction and Forced Conversion of Girls. They are calling for Christian churches in Pakistan to focus their sermons on the issue on May 26.

The Protestant National Council of Churches, Catholic Bishops’ Conference of Pakistan, the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church, and the Christian Awakening Movement are calling for a national day of protest against the abduction, forced conversion, and forced marriage of Christian girls.

Each year, hundreds of Christian and Hindu girls are kidnapped. They are sexually abused, forcibly converted to Islam, and forced to marry their kidnapper. Many of the girls are under-age but their abductors, who are usually much older and already married, claim they are older.

Radical Islamic clerics sanction the crimes.  Judges routinely accept forged marriage certificates over birth certificates, ignore the girls’ testimonies that they do not want to convert, and hand the girls over to the abductors.

Pray for:

Girls to be returned to their families and healed from the trauma.

Judges and police to bring justice against the criminals and rescue the captives.

Pakistan’s culture to change to protect Christian girls from kidnappings, false conversions, and forced marriages.

 

Picture: Christian girls in Pakistan travel from CFI-sponsored center in a van for safety.