Friday, June 05, 2009

Twelve-year-old Christian girl forced to marry and convert to Islam in Pakistan

Another tragic report (this time from our friends at Compass Direct) on how young Christian girls continue to be victimized by Muslim men in Pakistan. Every time we receive one of these kinds of stories and the appalling response of Pakistani authorities, my blood just boils.  I think of my own daughter and I wonder I would respond if this were to happen to her. 

Please pray for this girl and her family as they go through this terrible ordeal.

LAHORE, Pakistan, June 4 (Compass Direct News) – The Christian mother of a 12-year-old girl in Punjab Province who was kidnapped, coerced into converting to Islam and forcibly married to a 37-year-old Muslim hopes to recover her daughter at a court hearing next week. The reaction of Pakistani law enforcement authorities to Sajida Masih’s complaint so far – ridiculing her and asserting that there is nothing she can do because her daughter is now a Muslim – does not encourage her hopes of recovering her daughter Huma at next Thursday’s (June 11) hearing. Masih said that Muhammad Imran abducted Huma at gunpoint on Feb. 23 from Hanif Kot village in Gujranwala district, forcibly converted her and then married her. Imran, father of three children, has since disappeared along with his first wife, children and new child-bride. Another land owner, Karamat Ali Saroyya, called Masih saying that Huma was in Muridke, but Masih and her lawyer were unable to find her there. Saroyya later demanded that Masih work his fields for one year to get her daughter back. [click here to read the full report]

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