In a big authorized victory, a Household Court docket in Pakistan has annulled the pressured marriage of Reeha Saleem, a Christian woman kidnapped in 2019 on her manner dwelling from faculty. The courtroom dominated that the wedding to her Muslim neighbor, beneath which she was coerced into changing to Islam, was not legitimate.
Reeha, who was a 17-year-old scholar on the time of her abduction, testified that her signature on the wedding certificates was obtained by way of coercion, says authorized advocacy group ADF Worldwide, which represented her in courtroom by way of its native allies.
The courtroom discovered that she didn’t marry her abductor, Muhammad Abbas, willfully. Abbas, who repeatedly failed to look in courtroom regardless of a number of notices, was judged in absentia throughout ex-parte proceedings.
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Reeha’s ordeal started when she was forcibly taken by Abbas and pressured into a wedding and non secular conversion that she by no means consented to. Through the courtroom proceedings, she reaffirmed her Christian religion and denied having willingly transformed to Islam.
Parveen Saleem, Reeha’s mom, expressed profound reduction on the courtroom’s determination. “We’ve faced indescribable difficulties during this time, including being forced to go into hiding to escape from Reeha’s abductor who kept threatening the family to return ‘his wife’. We also suffered from an abrupt end to Reeha’s education,” she stated.
With the annulment, Parveen hopes her daughter can resume her research and return to a standard life, thanking ADF Worldwide’s allied lawyer, Sumera Shafique, for his or her help in securing justice.
Tehmina Arora, ADF Worldwide’s director of Advocacy in Asia, stated, “No girl should suffer the horrors of abduction and forced marriage, further being forced to give up their faith.” Arora referred to as for systemic change, advocating for the Pakistani authorities to set the minimal marriage age to 18, to forestall such pressured marriages and conversions.
Pressured marriages are validated by Sharia regulation in Pakistan. The regulation permits marriage at puberty, typically setting the marriageable age decrease than the nation’s official limits of 16 to 18 years previous.
Arora added: “These forced conversions and marriages are a tremendous violation of the basic human rights of these young women, who often are fearful for their lives and those of their families, preventing them from denouncing their captors. In Pakistan, where these abuses are prevalent, the government has an opportunity to make a difference by implementing a uniform age for marriage and other safeguards in the law.”
A 2014 report by a neighborhood group, The Motion for Solidarity and Peace Pakistan, estimated that a whole bunch of ladies and ladies from Pakistan’s Hindu and Christian communities had been kidnapped, forcibly married and transformed to Islam yearly.
The U.S.-based Worldwide Christian Concern has reported that faith is commonly injected into circumstances of sexual assault to put non secular minority victims at a drawback. Perpetrators play upon non secular biases to cowl up and justify their crimes by introducing a component of faith.
“Well bless their hearts.”
