Persecution Magazine, April 2013 2/4 by International Christian Concern

PERSECUTION International Christian Concern | April 2013

Issue 2/4

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Your Bridge to the Persecuted Church

MIDDLE EAST

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“Help! Let me go! Help!” Naziya ran upstairs to see why her cousin was screaming. The door was locked. “Help!” the screams continued from the washroom. “Let me in!” Naziya shouted back while pounding on the door. There was no response. Helpless and panicked, Naziya rushed out of the house for assistance. An hour later, she returned with her cousin Sumbal’s parents, but it was too late. Sumbal was gone. Sumbal, a 15-year-old Christian girl, and Naziya, Sumbal’s older cousin, had lived together for two years while working as maids in a wealthy Muslim’s home in Lahore, Pakistan. “They always treated us bad, but especially Sumbal,” Naziya told ICC in December. “They would beat her for the smallest things. If she burnt the bread or made a little mess they would hit her and not allow her to eat.” When Sumbal’s parents arrived at the house that September afternoon, Sumbal was nowhere to be found. The Muslim employer claimed Sumbal had run away, but her parents knew better. She had been abducted, or worse, murdered. Now, more than six months later, they have still not seen their daughter. Though neighbors of the Muslim employer say Sumbal is dead, Naziya refuses to believe them. “I feel in my heart that she is alive,” she said while fighting back tears. Young Christian girls are often the most vulnerable targets of persecution in Pakistan. During a five-month period in 2012, 40 girls were sexually assaulted, 14 were murdered, 22 were kidnapped, and six were forcibly married to older Muslim men in the Pakistan city of Faisalabad alone, according to the Society for the Protection of the Rights of the Child (SPARC). Nearly all of these girls were from religious minority communities, most of whom were Christian.

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MIDDLE EAST

Sumbal’s cousin, Naziya, her father, Sardar Masih, and younger family members

Muhammad had been waiting for Shumaila during her walk home at dawn after another long night at the mill on September 24. Holding a gun to her head, Muhammad grabbed Shumaila and threw her into a vehicle. The next day, Shumaila was taken to see a Muslim lawyer and was told to sign documents that legalized her marriage to Muhammad Ten days after Sumbal’s disappearance, Shumaila Bibi was and declared her a Muslim. Shumaila refused. walking home after finishing an all-night shift at a textile mill in Faisalabad when she “When she didn’t sign the too vanished. Muhammad papers, Shumaila was given Javaid Iqbal, a 26-year-old some fluid in a cup of tea I WANT TO LIVE WITH MY PARENTS AND Muslim man, had long takwhich made her unconPRACTICE MY CHRISTIAN FAITH. I REFUSED TO scious,” said Shareef. “The en an interest in Shumaila. But Shumaila, a devoted MARRY MUHAMMAD SEVERAL TIMES. AND FOR lawyer was able to get her THAT HE RUINED MY LIFE. Christian, repeatedly denied thumb imprints on the marMuhammad’s marriage proriage and conversion docuposals. ments. There was a group of SHUMAILA, A CHRISTIAN GIRL ABDUCTED AND around 30 people in the lawSEXUALLY ABUSED BY A MUSLIM ADMIRER “Muhammad had helped yer’s office who supported Shumaila get the job at the Muhammad’s ‘noble’ cause factory and developed a to convert Shumaila.” friendship with her brothers,” Shareef Masih, Shumaila’s brother-in-law, told ICC. “Muhammad used to pay regular Shumaila was admitted to a madrassa (Muslim school) by visits to Shumaila’s house because he wanted her parents’ her Muslim ‘in-laws’ to study the Quran and learn Islamic permission to marry her. But she refused his proposal. She prayers. “Everything was supervised by the family,” exwas faithful to her Christian beliefs and he was a Muslim plained Shareef. For days Shumaila was “sexually abused, man. Muhammad often teased and abused Shumaila be- harassed and forced to study the Quran and the precepts of cause of her determination to follow Christianity.” Islam,” reported Asia News.

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MAKING A DIFFERENCE Shumaila eventually managed to flee the madrassa and return to her family on October 5. Muhammad reported Shumaila’s escape to the local police station, claiming that her family had “kidnapped” her and that she had chosen to convert to Islam “of her own free will.” Mansha Masih, Shumaila’s father, now risks imprisonment for his daughter’s abduction and there is grave concern that Shumaila will be returned to her kidnapper. “[I want to] live with my parents and practice the Christian faith,” Shumaila told Asia News. “I refused [to marry Muhammad] several times. And for that he ruined my life.”

Sumbal and Shumaila are only two among hundreds of Christian girls that fall prey to Pakistan’s cultural norms – rooted in Islam – that legitimize violence against Christian women. During ICC’s visit to Pakistan in December, we met with more than a dozen Christian girls and their parents who shared similar experiences, including Rafique Masih, whose 12-year-old daughter Muqadas Kainat was raped and murdered by four Muslim men Sahiwal, a city in Punjab province, in August 2012. The abductions are often carried out with the intent to forcibly convert the kidnapped girl to Islam and marry her to an older Muslim man. Moreover, abductions are accompanied by acts of extreme violence, including rape, beatings, and other forms of physical and mental abuse. If the girl is found by police to have been raped, she can be put in jail for “unlawful sex” and her release is often contingent upon her agreeing to marry the rapist. For Christian victims, marrying the rapist would also mean renouncing their faith by converting to Islam, which is forced on girls who marry Muslims. The legal rights of women and Christians are practically nonexistent in Pakistan’s court and whether thrown behind bars or kept captive by abductors, girls rarely manage to escape. Like Sumbal’s parents, most never see their daughters again.

Members of ICC’s Sewing Center, a training center to help Christian girls learn a trade that keeps them out of vulnerable situations

Few organizations are able to defend, rehabilitate, and minister to these young Christian girls. By discreet methods, ICC is partnering with Christian ministries in Pakistan who are courageously fighting to reclaim the dignity of their daughters. Moreover, ICC is rescuing girls from potentially vulnerable situations, such as working in Muslim homes as servants where they are susceptible to rape and other abuse, by enrolling them in ICC vocational training programs. These centers give girls the skills they need to work from the comfort of home while also generating a sustainable income.

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