PAKISTAN – Missing girls married off to Muslims
28/08/07
Police stall efforts to recover Christian minors
Shamaila Tabassum
The certificate for the missing 16-year old girl indicates the marriage took place 12 days before her disappearance, and the other certificate puts the missing 11-year-old's age at 18.
Police seem to be stalling efforts to recover the minors, prompting the girls' solicitor to bring a case against officers in the Punjab city of Faisalabad this week.
"This type of incident is increasing in Faisalabad," a representative of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan told reporters from Faisalabad today.
When Zunaira Rasheed, aged 11, disappeared from her home in Faisalabad's Warispura neighbourhood on 5 August, her mother was at first reluctant to go to the police, she said.
Abida Parveen said she was worried that news of the disappearance might ruin her daughter's 'honour' and with it her chances of marrying, according to Pakistani journalist Qaiser Felix of Asia News.
Whilst searching for her daughter, Abida was approached by a Muslim man from the neighbourhood, Rana Azher, who offered to help her in exchange for money.
"We saw your daughter going in a rickshaw with Muhammad Adnan," Rana Azher told Abida.
The Christian mother immediately went to Mr Adnan's home but was not allowed inside.
Desperate for help, Abida eventually scraped together 12,000 rupees (ca £100) to pay Mr Azher to negotiate with Mr Adnan on her behalf.
Mr Azher soon produced a copy of a certificate of marriage between Rasheed and Mr Adnan but failed to do anything more.
"Unfortunately, I found out too late that those men who said they would help me only wanted money," Abida said in an 22 August Asia News article."
"I have sold all I have, but it wasn't enough, and now I am alone."
The 9 August certificate, signed by Muslim cleric Kareem Muhammad Ramazan in Lahore, gave Rasheed's name as Fatima Bibi (indicating her conversion to Islam) and stated her age as 18.
Despite the name and age difference, Rasheed's family said they were not in doubt that the Fatima Bibi indicated in the certificate was the same person as their daughter because the certificate gives Rasheed's address and father's name.
Abida eventually registered a report with local police, but law enforcement officers have yet to recover her daughter.
The Christian woman, who works as a maid in Muslim homes to support her four children, said that Rasheed had been engaged to be married to a relative.
"They are a very poor family from a backward area, and there is a practice among backwards and poor people to get their children married early," journalist Felix told reporters.
He said it is not clear whether this marriage was actually scheduled to take place any time in the near future.
Kidnapping accusation
In a second incident last week, Shamaila Tabassum, aged 16, disappeared after telling relatives she was on her way to the hospital with several Muslim neighbours to visit her father, whom she said had suffered a serious accident.
The Christian girl's family became worried after her supposedly hospitalised father arrived home from work in perfect health.
Her uncles said they had passed Shamaila while they were bicycling home from work on the afternoon of 16 August, approximately 2 miles from their home in Faisalabad's Elahiabad neighbourhood.
Seeing her uncles, Shamaila exited the Toyota Corolla she was riding in, told them her father had been admitted to the city's Allied Hospital, and then left in the car.
According to the uncles, three Muslim neighbours – Mohammad Mazhar, his sister Naseem Akhter and a cousin named Zheer Ahmad – as well as an unknown fourth man, were in the car with Shamaila.
Worried for his daughter's safety, Shamaila's father visited Mr Mazhar's house that evening, solicitor Khalil Tahir said.
"Mr Mazhar's house was locked," Mr Tahir said, and Mr Mazhar's relatives claimed not to know his whereabouts.
On 18 August, Shamaila's father registered a case with police at Faisalabad's Sadar police station, accusing Mr Mazhar of kidnapping his daughter.
He indicated in the police report that he was worried that Mr Mazhar would attempt to force his daughter to convert, said solicitor Mr Tahir.
On the evening of 22 August, a former head of the Elahiabad union council visited Shamaila's home to deliver a certificate of her marriage to Mr Mazhar.
"Now your daughter has converted to Islam, so there is no need to go to court," Rana Javed told the girl's father.
According to the certificate, Shamaila and Mr Mazhar were married by a Muslim sheikh in the city of Sargodha, 37 miles north of Faisalabad.
But the document was dated 4 August, 12 days before Shamaila's disappearance.
"This is obviously a falsified document, because on 4 August she was at home," Mr Tahir said.
The document also carried a new Muslim name for Shamaila, indicating her conversion to Islam.
Though Pakistanis under the age of 18 cannot carry out legal transactions – including conversion and marriage – without the consent of their guardian, prejudiced lower court judges often turn a blind eye to the law in order to favour Muslims in cases against Christians, Mr Tahir said.
The Christian lawyer said he had agreed to take both cases pro bono because both families are poor.
Mr Tahir said the investigation was delegated to Assistant Sub-inspector Mohammad Ameen, who has yet to register the criminal case under Pakistan's penal code.
"The Station House Officer [SHO] is legally bound to register the case," Mr Tahir commented.
The solicitor filed a written petition against Sadar SHO Mohammad Zafar on 20 August for failing to have his subordinate follow through on the investigation.
Mohammad Zafar has been called to appear before Additional District and Sessions Judge Gabriel Francis on 31 August, Mr Tahir said.
"Many Pakistani Christians are poor, and this is the reason they are being targeted," writer Felix told reporters."
"There are many other individual cases of forced conversion that go unreported because of their poverty."
Felix said that impoverished Christians are often unable to pursue their cases in court when their interests conflict with those of more influential Muslims.
Amina Zaman of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan told reporters that three priests from the area recently reported a growing number of incidents similar to that of the disappearance, conversion and questionable marriages of Shamaila and Rasheed.
"It is increasing in Pakistan and especially in Faisalabad," Zaman said.
Christians make up 1.5 per cent of Pakistan's population, according to the American State Department's latest report on religious freedom.
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