Elishba Adnan. (Christian Daily International-Morning Star News courtesy of family)
LAHORE, Pakistan (Christian Daily International–Morning Star News) – Police have taken no action in the forcible conversion/marriage of a Christian girl kidnapped in Pakistan on June 11, a rights advocate said.
Elishba Adnan, 14, was taken from her home by a 26-year-old Muslim, Babar Mukhtar, said Albert Patras, a rights advocate based in Vehari District of Punjab Province, adding that Mukhtar is reportedly married.
Adnan Masih, a sanitation worker with the Burewala Tehsil Municipal Authority, immediately filed a report with the City Police Station in Burewala after learning that his daughter was missing, Patras said.
“However, to date the police have not registered a First Information Report [FIR], significantly delaying legal proceedings for the recovery of the child and exacerbating the family’s distress,” Patras told Christian Daily International-Morning Star News.
He said that the impoverished Catholic made repeated visits to police and pleaded with them to recover his daughter, without success.
“After his own efforts failed, Masih reached out to us for help,” Patras said. “When we contacted the police, we were told that the girl has converted to Islam and married Mukhtar of her free will. We asked the police to show us the documents on the basis of which they were claiming her conversion and marriage, but they refused.”
They then met with a senior police officer and urged him to direct subordinates to register an FIR, the legal right of the complainant, but officers still haven’t filed a case, he said.
The delay in the registration of the FIR and police inaction gave sufficient time for the suspect to convert the girl and falsify marriage with her to give legal protection for the crime, he said.
Masih said he believed Mukhtar seized Elishba while she was visiting her uncle.
“Mukhtar was an acquaintance of my elder brother and used to visit his house often,” Masih told Christian Daily International-Morning Star News. “We do not know if he has seduced my child or blackmailed her into going with him. It is abduction nonetheless, because my daughter is a minor and she could have been easily influenced by the much older man.”
The family had removed Elishba from school to help her mother take care of her newborn twin brothers, Masih said. She is the oldest of his six children.
“Elishba’s disappearance has devastated our lives,” Masih said. “We do not have any information about her condition and wellbeing. If the police had taken prompt action on our complaint, we could have rescued her from Mukhtar’s illegal custody, but now much time has lapsed, and God knows what has become of her.”
Patras, the rights activist, said that they would ask police to charge Mukhtar under laws related to abduction, rape, child marriage, forced marriage, and sexual exploitation of a child.
“Unfortunately, there’s no law in Pakistan that criminalizes forced faith conversion,” he said. “While Article 20 of Pakistan’s Constitution allows citizens the freedom to profess their religion, forcing any person, especially minors, to change their faith is a serious violation of fundamental rights. The government must legislate against forced conversions to protect minority women and underage girls, who are particularly targeted by men from the majority faith for sexual exploitation in guise of conversion and Islamic marriage.”
Provincial police leaders should take notice of the inordinate delay in the registration of the FIR, as such delays enable perpetrators to carry out crimes with impunity, he said.
“Such incidents foster a sense of insecurity and fear among minority communities, while delays in the provision of justice erode trust in the country’s legal system,” Patras said.
Typically, kidnapped girls in Pakistan, some as young as 10, are abducted, forced to convert to Islam and raped under cover of Islamic “marriages” and are then pressured to record false statements in favor of the kidnappers, rights advocates say. Judges routinely ignore documentary evidence related to the children’s ages, handing them back to kidnappers as their “legal wives.”
On May 29, Pakistan’s President Asif Ali Zardari signed into law a landmark bill to curb child marriage, setting the minimum age for marriage for both genders at 18 years in the Islamabad Capital Territory (ICT) despite fierce opposition from Islamist groups, including the country’s top Islamic body, the Council of Islamic Ideology (CII).
The CII declared that classifying marriage under the age of 18 as rape did not conform with sharia (Islamic law).
A similar bill has been awaiting a vote in the Punjab Provincial Assembly since April 25, 2024. Currently the minimum age for girls to marry is still 16 in the province. Nationally, the Christian Marriage (Amendment) Act 2024 set the marriageable age at 18 only for Christians; if they convert to Islam, girls considered Muslims come under sharia, which allows them to marry younger.
Pakistan, whose population is more than 96 percent Muslim, ranked eighth on Open Doors’ 2025 World Watch List of the most difficult places to be a Christian.
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- Elishba Adnan. (Christian Daily International-Morning Star New courtesy of family)
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