By Michael Ireland, Senior Reporter, ASSIST News Service answritermike@gmail.com
PUNJAB, PAKISTAN (ANS, July 29, 2015) --
A Christian mother of three who was kidnapped and raped by her Muslim
landlord, has again highlighted the dangers faced by young women who are
followers of Christ.
According to the British Pakistani Christian Association (BPCA) www.britishpakistanichristians.org,
the incident occurred on July 23, 2015 when Fouzia Sadiq was abducted
from a field located at at Burj Mahalam, Chak No.35, Pattoki**, located
in Punjab Province of Pakistan, where she worked on as a bonded laborer.
BPCA
says details of the abduction have not yet been made public. However,
Muslim landlord Muhammed Nazir employed the whole family, including the
children in a form of modern day slavery, paying very little money and
providing squalid shelter. The husband signed a contract with a
thumbprint because he was unable to read it. Only 7 percent of
Christians attain an adequate level of literacy.
In an e-mail update, obtained
by ASSIST News, BPCA says: “This family has been oppressed for
generations and when they discovered their daughter had been abducted
they approached the landlord's house and were told by the brother that
she would be returned shortly. The family simply waited prayerfully for
the return of their daughter and told no-one of the incident. The next
day when they returned for their daughter they were threatened with
violence and warned not to say anything as the girl was now property of
Muhammed Nazir who had married her after she had allegedly accepted
Islam.”
BPCA said its officer Mehwish
Bhatti has travelled to the location to speak with the family and has
offered help, which the family have accepted. “We will be placing the
family in our BPCA safe house and have already coordinated a solicitor
who will challenge the local Police station to register an FIR (First
Incident Report).”
Iqra Sadiq, Fouzia's sister,
said: "My sister has been missing for five days and police are refusing
to register an FIR, my heart is broken. Our landlord is a cruel man and
we have been starving since he stopped the little payment that was due
to us. We have no power and have to face such injustice, please help
us!"
BPCA says Mehwish Bhatti left
enough money for the family to survive and travel to its secret safe
house. The family consist of Father Sadiq Masih (60) who is paralyzed
and cannot work, his wife Bashira (55), and seven children. “Mehwish
left enough money for the family to feed themselves and to travel to our
safe house. We are desperately going to need donations to help them
further,” the advocacy group said.
BPCA says tragedies such as
these are not rare, but commonplace and in their April 2014 report
"Movement of Solidarity and Peace in Pakistan" stated that 1,000 girls
are abducted, raped and forced into Islamic marriage every year, 700 of
which are estimated to be Christian girls.
BPCA cites the latter’s report,
which states: "....cases of forced marriages/conversions follow a
distinctive pattern: Christian girls — usually between the ages of 12
and 25 — are abducted, converted to Islam, and married to the abductor
or third party. The victim’s family usually files a First Information
Report (FIR) for abduction or rape with the local police station. The
abductor, on behalf of the victim girl, files a counter FIR, accusing
the Christian family of harassing the willfully-converted and married
girl, and for conspiring to convert the girl back to Christianity. Upon
production in the courts or before the magistrate, the victim girl is
asked to testify whether she converted and married of her own free will
or if she was abducted. (In most cases, the girl remains in custody of
the abductor while judicial proceedings are carried out). Upon the
girl’s pronouncement that she willfully converted and consented to the
marriage, the case is settled without relief for the family. Once in the
custody of the abductor, the victim girl may be subjected to sexual
violence, rape, forced prostitution, human trafficking and sale, or
other domestic abuse."
According to the BPCA email, in Jan 2012, The News (http://www.thenews.com.pk)
reported on a Muslim brothel that had been created with Christian rape
and forced conversion victims, in a place called Ayub Goth, near the
town of Essa Nagri in Karachi, only meters away from a Catholic Church.
BPCA states: “Moreover, Muslim
men gather in the very same Christian area every evening armed with guns
and pick which houses they will loot and which girls will be raped. In
one incident, an elderly mother from Essa Nagri, told The News. ‘I had
to bear the screaming of her two daughters while she was behind a locked
door in another room crying and praying.’ She has been quoted as
saying: ‘I saw two of my daughters being raped in front of me.’ It is
considered that Chooras have no integrity.’ She says that around
midnight, men from other areas start gathering in their neighborhood.
‘They are usually drunk. They choose which home they will plunder.’”
The BPCA is currently providing
shelter for the family of Sherish and Farzana and free legal aid, after
the two sisters were abducted at gunpoint, brutalized and gang-raped
for more than 12 hours.
These sisters were then dumped
naked and unconscious in the same field they were kidnapped from and
found by their father and a friend who had been up all night searching
for them. The girls were left vulnerable as their annual earnings were
GBP£592 (USD$925) per year, meaning they could not afford a toilet at
their home and had to use a local field to relieve themselves. When the
sisters' family took the case to the local police they were ignored
until humanitarian pressure resulted in an FIR being laid and arrests
being made.
BPCA’s Mehwish Bhatti stated:
“The pain felt by our sisters in Pakistan wounds the heart of our
community. Latest victim Fouzia Bibi was a mother of three, yet she may
still be forced to remain in the forced Islamic marriage despite
existing legal precedents from Lahore High court which clearly state
that a ‘married Christian woman cannot be remarried to a Muslim even if
converted. Sexual abuse against religious minority women is covered
under Hadu’d laws – which does not distinguish rape from adultery and
gives the same punishment in both cases. Moreover, these cases are tried
in Islamic Shari’a courts which are permitted to give punishments to
non-Muslims but forbid the appearance of non-Muslim lawyers in court or
to be a presiding officer. Non-Muslims are also not considered equal
witnesses to Muslims in Shari’a courts. Worse still, radical clerics and
imams in their mosques and madrassers preach that if you rape
non-Muslim minority women then you will obtain a special status in
heaven.’"
He added: "I fear for Fouzia
and will pray endlessly for our sister as she has to fight a system set
up to undermine Christians. When courts make judgements in these cases
more often than not, they forgo the age limit allowing forcible
marriages of girls under the legal age of 14, discounting family
objections and basing decisions on the testimonies of weeping victims.
Victims who claim to be consenting to the marriage and having adopted
Islam, when the girls have never been removed from the custody of the
assailants and are threatened with violence to them and their families
if they dare to speak the truth. In such cases the authority of a Muslim
man's words significantly outweighs that of Christians, so they have
little hope of ever retrieving Fouzia from a life of pain, brutality and
debauchery."
Mehwish Bhatti concluded:
"These injustices have been allowed to continue unchecked by a
government insouciant to the concerns of their largest minority. While
the west continues to fund Pakistan through large foreign aid subsidies,
they make themselves more complicit in the ongoing genocide of
minorities living there. The BPCA has so often called for a cessation of
Britain's foreign aid budget to Pakistan or use of the budget as a
lever for change in the poor human rights record of Pakistan. But
realpolitick based on intrinsic trade agreements and ostensible ally
status of Pakistan in the war against terror have created little
appetite in our heartless politicians for such action.”
**Pattoki is a town in the Kasur District of the Punjab province of Pakistan. It is the headquarters of Pattoki Tehsil, an administrative subdivision of the district. It is the only city in Pakistan that has a flower market mainly for roses. The city is known as "The City of Flowers."
Photo One: BPCA Officer Mehwish Bhatti prays with the victim family (Courtesy BPCA).
Photo Two: Michael Ireland
About
the writer: Michael Ireland is a Senior Correspondent for the ASSIST
News Service, as well as a volunteer Internet Journalist and Ordained
Minister who has served with ASSIST Ministries and ASSIST News Service
since its beginning in 1989. He has reported for ANS from Jamaica,
Mexico, Nicaragua, Israel, Jordan, China, and Russia. Click http://paper.li/Michael_ASSIST/1410485204 to see a daily digest of Michael's stories for ANS.
** You may republish this or any of our ANS stories with attribution to the ASSIST News Service (www.assistnews.net).
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