A group of United Nations experts on Monday called on Pakistani authorities to take steps to stop child marriages and forced religious conversions as soon as possible.
«We urge the government to take immediate steps to prevent these acts in accordance with national laws and international human rights commitments,» said the commission at a time when Hindu and Christian minorities have denounced an increase in the abduction of girls and adolescents to be forced into marriage.
«We are deeply concerned to hear that girls as young as 13 are being abducted» and «forced to marry men sometimes twice their age, and coerced into converting to Islam,» the group says.
It also lamented that the Pakistani judicial system hardly supports the victims, who are also threatened by Islamic fundamentalist groups, despite the fact that national legislation prohibits such practices.
«Relatives say that the police rarely take complaints seriously, either refusing to register them or arguing that no crime has been committed by labeling these abductions as ‘love marriages,'» they explained.
Every year, hundreds of girls — mostly teenage girls — from an impoverished Hindu community in the southern province of Sindh fall victim to this practice, facilitated by Islamic religious leaders and groups, according to local activists.
Source: (EUROPA PRESS)
