Pakistan Forcibly Converted and Married Christian Girl Returned to Parents

5/21/2025  (Morning Star News)

A kidnapped Christian girl in Pakistan has been reunited with her parents, five months after a Muslim abducted her, forcibly converted/married her and got her pregnant due to repeated sexual assault, her lawyer said. The 15-year-old girl was abducted from her aunt’s home by Muhammad Anees, 29, and four accomplices. The girl was abducted while visiting her aunt. Police ignored family’s pleas for action against the suspect and for recovery of their daughter. After 12 days, the police informed her family that their daughter had converted to Islam and married Anees with her free will. There were factual mistakes in the paperwork filed for her marriage, however, and the Lahore High Court ordered police to find her and arrest the suspects. So far, Anees and two others have been arrested and imprisoned, and the girl is now at home with her family. Her lawyer is preparing to charges related to rape, forced faith conversion and child marriage in the case against the suspects. Hundreds of girls and women are kidnapped and married to their captors every year, but a new bill has been passed in parliament that might help curb the problem. The bill raises the legal age for marriage to 18 from 16, and any man over 18 who marries or forces an underage girl to marry him could be imprisoned for up to seven years. Those who live with an underage child in a marital relationship will be arrested for statutory rape.

Please pray…

• Praise God for the safe return of this 15-year-old girl to her family.

• Pray for her to recover from the terrible trauma she has experienced.

• Praise God for the new law passed by the government.

• Pray that it will be enforced and that it will become law throughout the entire nation, not just some regions.