ISLAMABAD: Every year in Pakistan, several hundred young Christian, Hindu and Kalash girls are forcibly converted to Islam and sometimes married off without the consent of their families.
The growing radicalisation in the country is making life increasingly hard for hardly 10 percent of non-Muslim Pakistanis and they have little recourse in the face of violence.
In order to give an end to forced conversion of Kalash minority - an animist tribe which lives in Chitral - Christian and Hindu girls by hardliners, the director-general (DG) Council of Islamic Ideology (CII) on Monday told a parliamentary panel that "the council is undertaking the task of preparing the draft to define forced conversion and seek the solution comprehensively."
The CII - the top constitutional body which advises the legislature whether or not a certain law is repugnant to Islam - according to the DG, is doing extensive research on forced conversion and a holistic approach has been adopted.
The meeting of the parliamentary committee to protect minorities from forced conversion held with Senator Anwaarul Haq Kakar in the chair discussed the issue of forced conversion threadbare.
In a conservative country like Pakistan, all the efforts by the respective governments to stop forced conversion has proved futile, as Sindh government attempted twice to outlaw forced conversion and marriages, including laying guidelines for the court process in the Protection of Minorities Bill, placing an age limit of 18 years upon conversion and enabling better due process.
In 2016, the bill was unanimously passed by the Sindh Assembly, but hardliner religious parties objected to an age limit for conversion, and threatened to besiege the assembly if the bill received approval of the governor, who then refused to sign the bill into law.
In 2019, a revised version was introduced, but religious parties protested once again succeeded to sop it. A sit-in was organised by Pir Mian Abdul Khaliq alias Mian Mithu, a political and religious leader and a central character in many cases of forced conversion of underage Hindu girls in Sindh.
As far the Kalash of Chitral is concerned, there is no one - right from human rights organizations to the district administration, police and the local lawmakers - to raise the issue of forced conversion of the Kalash girls - given the stronghold of the hardliners clerics' dominance in the area.
The director-general for the human rights ministry told the committee that the ministry has submitted some legislation on forced conversion as examples which were being implemented in some countries around the world. Since the committee has been vocal on enacting legislation on the subject matter, a sub-committee was formed to look into proposed draft legislations and recommend a comprehensive law to cover all aspects of forced conversion.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2020
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