Pakistan: The courts were complicit in the forced conversion to Islam of a young Hindu woman

Can the courts' ignorance of the second marriage of a still-married-woman be taken as legalizing the rape and adultery? Why have the courts ignored this important point that Islam does not and will never allow such marriages? Maybe answer would be that the judges simply became more sentimental Muslims than judicial officers when they saw that through an illegal way a woman is included in Islam..

Ahmadiyya Times | News Watch | Asia Desk
Source/Credit: The Asian Human Rights Commission
By AHRC-STM-176-2011 | November 11, 2011

The forced conversion of women from the Hindu community to Islam in Sindh province has become very common. The malicious campaign is in full swing by the religious seminaries, the Madressa and their modus operandi is to use students of the seminaries to abduct the young women, particularly the girls and rape them in captivity and when it is identified that girl has been abducted by the persons from Madressa they announce that the victim is married and has embraced the Islam. Such elements have found friends in the judiciary who always support forced conversion on the basis of an Islamic marriage certificate, the Nikah Naama.

In the cases of forced marriages the courts even allow marriage to the already married woman without following the teachings of Islam and Muslim personal laws of the country that declare such marriages as against Islam and as Haram (Illegitimate).

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Here, the Asian Human Rights Commission does not want to criticize the proceedings of the courts but wants to raise some basic questions related to fair trial and laws about marriages.

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What is the status of a woman who was already married? How can the new marriage be condoned unless she breaks the previous marriage or receives a divorce in order to be allowed to live with her second husband? According to Pakistani law, the Muslim personal laws, one woman cannot marry with another person without taking a divorce from the previous husband. Such marriages are called as illegal or Haram and police can file a case of illegal marriage as the police have done in many cases of marriage when a woman marries on her own wish. In these types of love marriage cases the parents of the girls bring some fictitious marriage certificate and implicate the husbands of the girls in abduction and Zina (rape and adultery).

Can the courts ignorance of the second marriage of a still-married-woman be taken as legalizing the rape and adultery? Why have the courts ignored this important point that Islam does not and will never allow such marriages? Maybe answer would be that the judges simply became more sentimental Muslims than judicial officers when they saw that through an illegal way a woman is included in Islam. So judges have decided to be a Muslim judge rather than a judicial judge.

In the cases of Muslim women's second marriages the courts have never allowed women to do so without taking a divorce from last one and at least more than three months she should have to confine herself in her house as her Iddat Period, a period in which it is ascertained as to whether she was pregnant with her pervious husband. But the question again is, whether higher courts have ever asked her to prove that she spent the Iddat days or not. The woman has to serve Iddat days in the cases of divorce or the death of her husband and during these days she cannot allowed meeting any male person who is out of her close family.

If her embracement to Islam through abduction and rape was recognized by the courts and courts were happy to see her as converting to Islam, then why have the courts not seen the fundamental requirements of Islam? Maybe laws are different for different occasions or maybe Hindus are not treated as citizens of Pakistan.

The religious minority's hope from the courts is shattered by such decisions where the Muslim seminaries have been allowed to perpetuate freely. In the Sindh province where Hindus are residing in good numbers they are generally victimized by the mushrooming growth of the Madressas which are very much active in forced conversion to Islam through abduction. The decision of courts in the case of Anita will obviously encourage the religious zealots to speedily convert the Hindu women by abduction and rape and use the court's rulings in their favour.


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About AHRC: The Asian Human Rights Commission is a regional non-governmental organisation that monitors human rights in Asia, documents violations and advocates for justice and institutional reform to ensure the protection and promotion of these rights. The Hong Kong-based group was founded in 1984.


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