UN human rights experts and Christian advocacy organizations are warning that Christian girls in Pakistan face a growing pattern of abduction, forced conversion to Islam, and child marriage, with courts and police frequently failing to intervene on their behalf.
In an April 2024 statement, a group of UN Special Rapporteurs reported that Christian and Hindu girls in Pakistan are “particularly vulnerable to forced religious conversion, abduction, trafficking, child, early and forced marriage, domestic servitude and sexual violence,” highlighting the case of a 13-year-old Christian girl whose age was falsified as 18 on her marriage certificate after she was allegedly kidnapped, converted and married to her abductor. Minority rights researchers such as Voice of Pakistan Minority have documented at least 515 reported cases of abduction and forced conversion of minority girls and women between 2021 and 2025, with Hindu girls making up 69 percent of victims and Christian girls 31 percent.
Christian-focused human rights groups echo these concerns, pointing to hundreds of Christian girls as young as 12 or 13 who are taken from their homes or workplaces, coerced into professing Islam, and married to much older men. A report by the International Society for Human Rights in 2026 cited testimony from Aneeqa Anthony of The Voice Society in Lahore, who said that between 2021 and 2024 her organization documented at least 137 Christian girls subjected to abduction, forced conversion and forced marriage, with many of these unions later legitimized by the courts despite clear violations of Pakistani and international law. Christian Solidarity Worldwide partners in Pakistan likewise recorded 94 cases of abduction, forced conversion and forced marriage of minority women and girls in 2025, noting that at least 24 percent of victims were Christian and warning that intimidation keeps many families from reporting their cases.
Individual stories have sparked international outrage and illustrate the vulnerabilities Christian families face. A BBC investigation in 2021 detailed the ordeal of “Farah,” a 12-year-old Christian girl who said she was abducted from her home, shackled, forced to convert to Islam and then married to her kidnapper, with authorities initially treating the marriage as lawful under religious provisions that allow underage unions if both parties are Muslim. In another widely covered incident, Pakistani police recovered a 13-year-old Christian girl in 2020 who had allegedly been abducted and forced to convert and marry a Muslim man, only after sustained pressure from her family and rights advocates. Christian ministries have also highlighted similar cases, including a teenage girl in Karachi whose abduction and forced marriage in 2020 prompted church leaders and advocates to call for stronger protections for minority minors.
Rights organizations say these abuses are enabled by gaps in enforcement of existing child marriage and criminal laws, along with social pressures and extremist narratives that treat conversion and marriage as religiously commendable when the girl is from a minority community. The UN experts criticized a pattern in which police refuse to register complaints or quickly accept a purported conversion and marriage statement from the girl, often taken in the presence of her alleged abductor, while courts ignore clear evidence of minority status and underage marriage. A 2025 report by a minority rights group estimated that around 2,000 minor girls from religious minorities are abducted, forcibly married to Muslim men, and compelled to convert each year, adding that courts frequently rule in favor of abductors and rarely hold perpetrators accountable.
Christian advocates have appealed not only to international bodies but also to Pakistan’s moral and spiritual conscience, stressing that these girls bear the image of God and deserve protection and justice. Organizations such as Christian Solidarity Worldwide, Human Rights Focus Pakistan and others have urged reforms that would ensure police register complaints promptly, require independent age verification, and treat alleged conversions of minors with deep suspicion, while calling churches worldwide to pray and speak up on behalf of victims. Campaigns led by legal advocacy groups, including Alliance Defending Freedom International, emphasize that hundreds of girls from Christian families are being abducted and married against their will every year, and call on Pakistan to strengthen laws and enforcement so that no child is forced to abandon her faith or family.
For Christian readers, these reports resonate with biblical commands to defend the vulnerable and pursue justice. Scripture repeatedly calls God’s people to “defend the weak and the fatherless; uphold the cause of the poor and the oppressed” (Psalm 82:3–4) and to “seek justice, encourage the oppressed” (Isaiah 1:17). Jesus’ warning that anyone who causes “one of these little ones who believe in me to sin” faces severe judgment (Matthew 18:6) underscores the gravity of exploiting children. At the same time, passages such as James 1:27, which defines pure religion as caring for orphans and widows in their distress, invite churches to see advocacy for vulnerable girls as an essential outworking of their faith.