HYDERABAD: Rights activists from the Christian community on Monday called for stricter legislation to discourage, what they termed, ‘forced conversions’, in the province.
Led by a former minority MPA, Saleem Khursheed Khokhar, they held a news conference in the local press club to stress that the Sindh Child Marriage Restraint Act, 2013, should be implemented in letter and spirit.
The press conference was held in the backdrop of a Sept 18 report regarding conversion of a Christian girl, Ankasha, who had claimed that she had contracted a freewill marriage with a Muslim man.Mr Khokhar and his associates insisted that she was underage, kidnapped and forced to convert.
‘The 14-year-old Christian girl was kidnapped in Karachi West on Sept 18 and taken to Larkana, where her religion was converted against her will,’ they claimed.
They demanded immediate recovery of the girl.
They said her family should also be provided protection.
Ex-MPA Khokhar, who currently lives in the UK and runs his ‘Christian’s True Spirit’ organisation, also claimed that 421 cases of alleged forced conversion had been reported between 2021 and 2024 of which 47pc cases pertained to underage marriages. He said that the Child Marriage Restraint Act was enacted in 2013 with his efforts, supported by the then law minister, Ayaz Soomro.
‘Despite this law on the statute, forced conversion cases are being reported,’ he claimed, and said: ‘There is no objection over marriage of girlsabove 18 years of age’.
The former lawmaker alleged that minority girls Kalisa belonging to Umerkot district and Bindya Kumari to Sibbi (Balochistan) were also kidnapped and subjected to forced conversion.
Mr Khokhar said that when he came to Pakistan earlier this month to meet the family of Ankasha and accompanied them to the office of Sindh Assembly’s Deputy Speaker Anthony Naveed, the latter got annoyed over his visit on a holiday. He expressed his disappointment over the deputy speaker’s excuse.
He remarked that Christians were not being effectively represented in the Sindh Assembly because a minority member’s performance was restricted.
He said Anthony Naveed, with the blessings of PPP, produced the Christian Marriage Personal Laws, 2026 ‘to divide the community’. He said that this law was drafted mainly by Hindu community activists, ‘and only one blind Christian minority rightsactivist was part of the process; thus it lacks credibility’.
He said that both these Christian members had engaged community members in this personal law debate while issues like forced conversion took the back seat.
Mr Khokhar urged President Asif Ali Zardari to intervene in the case of Ankasha.
Sooba Bhatti, who accompanied Mr Khokhar, claimed that a total of 599 cases of forced conversion, underage marriage and kidnapping had taken place since 2021 to date, as per a report of the Centre for Social Justice. He said that child marriages were being facilitated by Nikkah registrars, witnesses and those who would process the documents. ‘They should also be penalised in line with the Sindh Child Marriage Restraint Act 2013,’ he said, and regretted that this Act was not being implemented in letter and spirit. No action had been seen in the cases of kidnapping of minority girls and their conversion, he regretted.