Pakistan: Stolen Girls (Part 3)

        Source:                        www.jubileecampaign.org
Date:                             August 12, 2026

This is the third installment of our email reporting on our new publication, Stolen Girls, which seeks to document patterns of forced conversion, abduction, child marriage, and sexual violence affecting minority girls in Pakistan, and to highlight the legal gaps and institutional failures that allow these abuses to continue. You can click the links to view our two previous emails, the first of which discuss the geographic scope of cases, and the second of which discusses the age distribution of victims.

Read our full report

Mixed Signals

Judicial rulings in cases involving coerced faith conversion in Pakistan have been mixed and, at times, deeply inconsistent. In many instances, courts accept questionable documents produced by perpetrators without adequately scrutinising the age of the victim, the presence of coercion, or the broader circumstances in which the alleged consent was obtained. This results in perpetrators evading accountability under the guise of forged certificates of conversion and marriage.

Regressive Judgments

In July 2021, the Lahore High Court held that “Undeniably, neither any verse in the Holy Quran nor specific Hadith of the Prophet (PBUH) expressly stipulates a minimum age for conversion to Islam... Age of discernment is generally reckoned as the age when one attains puberty.”

On 3 February 2026, the Federal Constitutional Court gave a verdict that awarded custody of 13-year-old Christian girl, Maria, to her abductor or purported husband, effectively validating the child marriage despite documentary evidence of her age mentioned on her birth certificate issued by NADRA, and in disregard of the Punjab Child Marriage Restraint Act and relevant High Court jurisprudence protecting minors from child marriage.

Progressive Judgments

In February 2022, the Islamabad High Court held that “A female child below the age of 18 cannot be deemed competent to freely grant her consent to enter into a marriage contract merely because she manifests the physical symptoms of having attained puberty. A marriage contract involving a child under the age of 18 years is a contract prohibited by law, which, even if executed by a child, is void ab initio. Neither a child under the age of 18 can consent to engage in sexual conduct in any form, nor can a parent or guardian of a child, contract a child out to engage in sexual conduct under a marriage contract.”

In March 2023, the Federal Shariat Court held that prescribing a minimum age for marriage by the State is not contrary to the injunctions of Islam as laid down in the Holy Quran and Sunnah. The Court upheld the relevant provisions of the Sindh Child Marriages Restraint Act, 2013, affirming that fixing an age threshold for marriage falls within the State’s legislative competence and does not violate Islamic principles.

In July 2020 in Mehak Kumari case the Sindh High Court held that there is no prohibition under Islamic law or the law of the land for a converted Muslim woman to reside with her non-Muslim parents, which prevents the separation of children and parents after the alleged faith conversions.

The Stories

In November 2024, 13-year-old Lahore resident and beauty parlor employee, Sonia Tariq, failed to show up to work, prompting her father to seek help from police in locating the teenager. Despite being provided with Sonia's national documentation - indicating her birth year as 2011 - the authorities were satisfied by a recording of the girl alleging that she was 18 years of age, had accepted Islam, and adopted the name 'Ayesha'.

Sonia's father filed a writ petition with the Lahore High Court, and during proceedings in December, Justice Muhammad Rafiq acknowledged the legitimacy of the birth certificates identifying Sonia as a minor. Additionally, Justice Rafiq ordered that the girl be recovered and transported to a state-run women's shelter. Regrettably, half a year later, Sonia's kidnappers were able to convince a magistrate that the girl wished to leave the shelter and visit an acquaintance; the magistrate granted the request.

Sonia's father, though grateful that the girl was rescued the previous year from her captors thanks to the Lahore High Court decision, challenged the judgment in 2026. Namely, he asserts that Sonia, as a minor, should have been released to the custody of her parents rather than sent to a shelter, where she evidently did not receive the necessary care to prevent her from falling into her captor's clutches a second time.

This May, Sonia was summoned to the court, where she claimed that she was 20 years old and did not want to return to her family, who she believed would pressure her to return to Christianity. Sonia's family's lawyer, however, noted that the main issue at hand was regarding who should be in custody of the girl, who according to legal documentation is only 15 years of age. The family has stated that they would not have objections to Sonia's conversion to Islam if it had been her choice, but that she should be returned to her family regardless of her faith on the grounds that she is a minor.

During proceedings, judges questioned the validity of Sonia's birth certificate and ultimately decided once again to send the girl back to her abductors. Sonia's family is concerned that any day now they may receive news that she has been forcibly married. Read Sonia's full story

The Experts

Akmal Bhatti: "Investigations and trials in such cases are often neither fair nor lawful. Both the judiciary and the police tend to favour abductors, relying on forged certificates and statements made by minor girls under duress. The court’s reasoning includes claims that birth certificates can easily be tampered with, that newly converted girls cannot be allowed to return to non-Muslim parents, and that girls appear to be adults based on physical appearance, even when documentary proof indicates they are underage. A striking example is the Federal Constitutional Court’s refusal to accept strong, credible birth certificate evidence showing that both Maria Shahbaz and Sonia Tariq are minors, and its failure to order their custody to be returned to their parents." Read Mr. Bhatti's full statement

Afiya Shehrbano Zia: "Proposed amendments to the CMRA (Child Marriage Restraint Act) – such as raising the marriageable age of girls from 16 to 18 years, have been termed ‘blasphemous’ and deemed ‘un-Islamic’ and ‘irrelevant’ by the Council of Islamic Ideology (CII) - a constitutional body tasked with the provision of religious legal advice to the legislature. Detractors argue that the legal prohibition of the marriage of girls under 18 years of age would contradict the Islamic allowance for marriage upon puberty. The opposition to any amendments on the pretext that they contravene Sharia reflects the larger tensions that define the legislative process in Pakistan – particularly for those related to women’s rights - and are resisted as attempts to ‘secularise’ or ‘Westernise’ the marriage practices of Muslims in the country. This tension between religious and ‘secular’ laws has defined the contradictions of women’s and minorities’ rights in Pakistan both, legally and socio-politically." Read Ms. Zia's full article in Universal College Lahore's 2023 Human Rights Review

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