Islamabad, October 6, 2026 (Yes Punjab News)
Three United Nations special rapporteurs have urged Pakistan to strengthen protection for girls facing alleged abduction, forced religious conversion and child marriage, stressing that legal safeguards will have limited impact unless they are consistently enforced and victims have meaningful access to justice.
The UN experts made the remarks during a side event at the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva, jointly organised by advocacy groups Jubilee Campaign and the European Center for Law and Justice (ECLJ). The discussion focused on reported cases involving Christian girls allegedly being abducted, forcibly converted to Islam and married to Muslim men.
The participants included UN Special Rapporteur on Minority Issues Nicolas Levrat, Special Rapporteur on Violence Against Women and Girls Reem Alsalem, and Katarina Schwarz, the newly appointed Special Rapporteur on Contemporary Forms of Slavery and Trafficking in Persons.
Levrat said Pakistan had international obligations to protect children from forced religious conversion and child marriage. He argued that impunity surrounding alleged forced conversions could not be addressed solely through new legislation and called for better access to justice for religious minorities.
Schwarz said child marriage could fall within the category of slavery and highlighted the links between discrimination and exploitation, particularly involving women and girls. She called for “robust and effective protection” for children and other vulnerable groups.
Alsalem referred to recent legal reforms in Pakistan, including the Punjab Child Marriage Restraint Act 2026, which raises the minimum marriage age to 18 for both boys and girls and makes underage marriage a non-bailable offence. She nevertheless expressed concern over inconsistent implementation and alleged pressure on victims and their families to withdraw complaints.
Families of alleged victims also shared their experiences during the event. The mother of Maria Shahbaz, a 13-year-old Christian girl who reportedly disappeared from her home in July last year, spoke about her daughter’s whereabouts. Maria later told a court that she had converted and married a 30-year-old man whom her family alleged had kidnapped her.
“We don’t know where they are keeping her,” her mother said in a video played during the event, according to the report cited by IANS.
In July, the European Parliament adopted a resolution urging Pakistan to address the alleged abduction and forced conversion of girls from religious minority communities. Citing UN data for 2025, the resolution said Christian girls accounted for nearly 25 per cent of reported cases involving forced religious conversion through marriage.
The European Parliament also called for a comprehensive national framework to eliminate child marriage and a national mechanism to handle complaints from families of girls belonging to minority communities who are allegedly abducted or forcibly converted.
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