Court in Pakistan Validates Forced Conversion, Marriage of Christian Girl to Muslim

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“The court, in just a few words citing the sharia, has justified the violation of the girl’s body since she has already had her first period.”

The beauty and benevolence of Islamic law.

Court in Pakistan Validates Forced Conversion, Marriage of Christian Girl to Muslim

Underage victim continually kept from appearing at hearings. By Our Pakistan Correspondent

 Huma Younas, 14, was abducted and forced to convert to Islam, her parents say. (Morning Star News courtesy of family)LAHORE, Pakistan, February 12, 2020 (Morning Star News) – A high court ruling in Pakistan validating the marriage and forced conversion to Islam of a 14-year-old Christian girl has heightened fears that it will encourage others to commit such crimes, sources said.

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The High Court in Sindh Province on Feb. 3 dismissed a petition to have the marriage and forced conversion of a Catholic girl overturned, ruling that both were valid since a girl under sharia (Islamic law) can marry after her first menstrual cycle.

Huma Younus was taken from her home in Karachi’s Zia Colony on Oct. 10 while her parents were away and was forced to marry the man who abducted her, identified as Abdul Jabbar of Dera Ghazi Khan, Punjab Province, her attorney said.

“The hearing on Feb. 3 lasted only five minutes,” the family’s attorney, Tabassum Yousaf, told Morning Star News. “The court, in just a few words citing the sharia, has justified the violation of the girl’s body since she has already had her first period.”

Yousaf added that the family was prohibited from seeing Huma because police said her life would be at risk if she was brought to the courtroom.

He said the family challenged Huma’s marriage and forced conversion under the Sindh Child Marriage Restraint Act 2013, which declares marrying a person under 18 years old an offense punishable by up to three years in prison.

Although the Sindh government takes credit for becoming Pakistan’s first elected assembly to pass a bill on child marriage in April 2014, the law is still poorly implemented, sources said.

Yousaf said he submitted Huma’s baptismal and school documents in court that proved she was 14 years old, but nevertheless Sindh High Court judges Muhammad Iqbal Kalhoro and Irshad Ali Shah ruled that the marriage was valid based on her menstrual cycle.

The legal battle has been going on for months with constant delays and excuses cited so as not to present the underage girl in court, sources said.

The family has filed an appeal to the Court of Justice in Sindh Province, and Yousaf said a hearing is scheduled for March 4. Police will thus have more time for medical tests to determine Huma’s age, he said.

Guardian Consent Needed
The girl’s parents were informed via text message that Huma had converted to Islam and had married Jabbar “of her free will,” sources said.

Since forced conversions are not illegal in Pakistan, her attorney said he believed the case hinged on Huma’s age.

Prominent Supreme Court Advocate Saiful Malook told Morning Star News that even though sharia allows marriage of a minor girl if she has her first period, the marriage has to be validated by the girl’s guardian.

“In no way can any court of law endorse an underage marriage unless it is supported by the girl’s guardian,” Malook said. “Marriage is governed by the Contract Act, wherein no minor can enter into a contract or agreement without the explicit approval of her guardian. In this particular case, the court must take into account whether the girl’s legal guardian has consented to her marriage even if it’s judging the act under the sharia.”

He added that a 14-year-old minor cannot be deemed mature enough to change her religion by her own will, considering the fact that she could have been coerced or blackmailed into renouncing her faith. Huma reportedly filed an affidavit declaring that she married of her own free will, but Yousaf has said that such an affidavit can’t be filed legally until she obtains an identity card at age 18.

The high court must order Huma to record a statement in the courtroom, Malook said.

“If the police are not producing the girl before the court on various pretenses, the court should be wise enough to see through the police’s mala fide and hand the custody of the minor back to her parents,” he said.

Malook, who represented Pakistan’s most high-profile blasphemy convict, Aasiya Noreen, better known as Asia Bibi, before the Supreme Court and won her freedom, said that abducting for the purpose of forced conversion and underage marriage is a major problem in Pakistan. He added that legislation effective in curbing the practice is long overdue.

Christian rights activists believe that the ruling of the Sindh High Court will encourage more perpetrators of such crimes to hide behind sharia. Pakistan Center of Law of Justice Executive Director Napoleon Qayyum told Morning Star News that the high court’s ruling would result in a surge in cases of forced conversion and underage marriages of Christian girls.

“Another Christian girl aged 14 was recently abducted and gang-raped by some Muslim youths in Bihar Colony area of Lahore,” Qayyum said. “The victim is a student of grade nine and was abducted by four or five boys on her way to a local tuition center on Jan. 16, 2020. The abductors not only raped her but also obtained her signatures and thumb impressions on some papers.”

Police were able to recover her on Jan. 19, but Qayyum said he fears the suspects will use her signed documents to produce a fake marriage certificate and religion conversion letter in a bid to escape abduction and rape charges.

“This is common modus operandi of Muslims to confuse the court and avoid justice,” he said.

In nearly all such cases, he said, the rapists threaten to harm the girls’ families if they reveal the truth.

“Moreover, the girls are also forced to give false statements in court that they have changed their religion of free will and had married of their own choice,” Qayyum said. “Girls belonging to minority communities often succumb to pressure and consideration for their family’s security, which has further emboldened the men belonging to the majority faith.”

Most victims of forced conversion and marriage in Pakistan are reportedly Christian and Hindu girls and women forced to marry Muslim men who are much older than them. According to the Centre for Social Justice, at least 159 such cases were reported between 2013 and 2019.

The Sindh legislature in 2016 passed a law outlawing forcible conversions and conversions before the age of 18 but, under pressure from Islamic extremist groups, the governor declined to sign it. Each year about 1,000 Christian and Hindu women in Pakistan are forcibly converted to Islam and then married off to their abductors or rapists, according to the National Commission of Justice and Peace and the Pakistan Hindu Council.

Pakistan ranked fifth on Christian support organization Open Doors 2020 World Watch list of the 50 countries where it is most difficult to be a Christian, and on Nov. 28, 2018, the United States added Pakistan to its blacklist of countries that violate religious freedom.

If you would like to help persecuted Christians, visit http://morningstarnews.org/resources/aid-agencies/ for a list of organizations that can orient you on how to get involved.  

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Photo: Huma Younas, 14, was abducted and forced to convert to Islam, her parents say. (Morning Star News courtesy of family)

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Halal Bacon
Halal Bacon
4 years ago

pedophilia much?

Bonnie Pupowner
Bonnie Pupowner
4 years ago
Reply to  Halal Bacon

dirty old men, and I mean DIRTY.
he’ll have no restrictions on beating her either.
And forced conversions over 18 should be illegal too.

Andrew
Andrew
4 years ago

Everybody in midtown Manhattan with a dirty food pushcart is from Pakistan. How did this happen? The sidewalks around the most elegant and expensive commercial properties in North America are infested with these ugly dirty pushcarts. Ugh!

Rusty
Rusty
4 years ago
Reply to  Andrew

Welcome to Lahore! Of course, you will be allowed no special treatment as a kafir.

MuhamMUDTheFakeProphet
MuhamMUDTheFakeProphet
4 years ago
Reply to  Andrew

Anne Marie Waters said the same thing. She said ALL the food carts she saw in metropolitan NYC were run by f’ing muslums.
At least I won’t have to bother to visit NYC now.

TomSJr
TomSJr
4 years ago

THIS is exactly how Muslims get away with PEDOPHILIA. They even tried to get their Sharia Law passed over here in Montana, but the State Legislature said, NO, NEVER, EVER. KUDOS TO REPUBLICANS FOR NOT ALLOWING SHARIA LAW IN THEIR STATE, EVER.

https://conservativepost.com/house-votes-to-ban-sharia-law-forever-finally/

MONTANA, 02-13-20
Senate Bill 97, introduced by Keith Regier (R-Kalispell) bans the application of foreign law in Montana’s courts, with the debate particularly focused on Sharia Law, a form of Islamic law typically used in the Middle East.”

Montana’s former Governor Steve Bullock (2017), a Democrat had vetoed the bill because HE THOUGHT AT THE TIME, that it was meant to single out SHARIA LAW……..
DUH, Governor. WE HAVE A CONSTITUTION THAT GIVES US FREEDOM. SHARIA LAW AND FOREIGN LAW DOES NOT GIVE US THAT!

THESE ARE YOUR DEMOCRATS IN AMERICA, PEOPLE, so if you vote for them, YOU RISK THE FUTURE FOR YOUR CHILDREN, OUR CULTURE, AND EVERYTHING ELSE!

DO NOT VOTE FOR ANY DEMOCRAT! THEY ARE THE FOREIGN AGENTS!

Rusty
Rusty
4 years ago
Reply to  TomSJr

There can be but One Law of the Land. If we allow anyone to cherry pick what they want what do you end up with? Look at Africa. The problems they have are born out of what they believe not what they look like. Pagans, Muslims, animists and maybe more. The Constitution and Declaration were born out of a Judeo/Christian world view. Compare the results. The Democrats reject the Constitution. Muslims taking an oath can abbrogate their oath as they take it. Read Dr. Stephen M. Kirby’s “Islamic Doctrine Versus the U.S. Constitution.” that can be downloaded from http://www.securefreedom.org just search for the author or title. The questions he suggests may well be put to Democrat candidates, too!

Poppey
Poppey
4 years ago

Run, hide and tell. For that is Pakistan and she’s in it.

May a kindly lords love for her and her courage aid her escape, she’s a lovely kid.

MuhamMUDTheFakeProphet
MuhamMUDTheFakeProphet
4 years ago

So did her muslum man master’s marriage proposal consist of rape?

Roma Mikhasev
Roma Mikhasev
4 years ago

horror..

MuhamMUDTheFakeProphet
MuhamMUDTheFakeProphet
4 years ago
Reply to  Roma Mikhasev

It is. No one kufar needs horror movies if they’re living in the muslum world, it’s a non-stop horror show.

arthur facteau
arthur facteau
4 years ago

Convert or die, this is exactly how they do it.

MuhamMUDTheFakeProphet
MuhamMUDTheFakeProphet
4 years ago

Huma Younus, poor girl. I hope she doesn’t end up getting honor killed or beaten by her muslum man master. I hope she can escape his clutches as well as the hellhole muslum state of Pakistain.

Bill Kay
Bill Kay
4 years ago

For the collective world population to allow this to continue is really beyond belief .

Verk
Verk
4 years ago

And muzztards still think islamophobia is something bad….

Verk
Verk
4 years ago

The “Religion” of Peace needs a visit from one of the USA’s uranium-enriched friends.

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