{"id":11685,"date":"2023-01-16T12:00:00","date_gmt":"2023-01-16T12:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/gulftimes.ae\/pakistan-rights-experts-urge-action-on-coerced-religious-conversions-child-marriage\/"},"modified":"2023-01-16T12:00:00","modified_gmt":"2023-01-16T12:00:00","slug":"pakistan-rights-experts-urge-action-on-coerced-religious-conversions-child-marriage","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gulftimes.ae\/?p=11685","title":{"rendered":"Pakistan: rights experts urge action on coerced religious conversions, child marriage"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <br \/>\n<br \/><\/p>\n<div>\n<p>In their appeal to the authorities to stop the alleged abuse, the experts warned that teenagers had been \u201ckidnapped from their families, trafficked \u2026 far from their homes (and) made to marry men sometimes twice their age\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>The rights experts &#8211; who report to the Human Rights Council \u2013 cited reports suggesting the involvement of religious authorities and the complicity of security forces and the justice system; although they also acknowledged that Pakistan had already made efforts to pass legislation prohibiting such illegal practices.<\/p>\n<h2><strong>\u2018Immediate steps\u2019 needed<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>\u201cWe urge the Government to take immediate steps to prevent and thoroughly investigate these acts objectively and in line with domestic legislation and international human rights commitments. Perpetrators must be held fully accountable,\u201d the experts said.<\/p>\n<p>In a statement urging Pakistan to uphold the rights of women and children, the group of nearly a dozen independent experts and Special Rapporteurs, maintained that Pakistan\u2019s courts had enabled the perpetrators by accepting \u201cfraudulent evidence\u201d from them, regarding the age of the victims and their willingness to marry and convert to Islam.<\/p>\n<h2><strong>\u2018Justifying\u2019 abuse<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>They noted that the courts had also sometimes \u201cmisused interpretations of religious law to justify victims remaining with their abusers\u201d; the police had also failed victims\u2019 families by refusing to register the abductions, or dismissing them as \u201clove marriages\u201d.<\/p>\n<h2><strong>Threat of violence<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>They said they were \u201cvery concerned\u201d that marriages and conversions have taken place \u201cunder threat of violence to these girls and women or their families.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAbductors force their victims to sign documents which falsely attest to their being of legal age for marriage as well as marrying and converting of free will. These documents are cited by the police as evidence that no crime has occurred.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The experts said it was imperative that all victims, regardless of religious background, are afforded access to justice and equal protection under the law.<\/p>\n<h2><strong>Adopt and enforce the law<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>\u201cPakistani authorities must adopt and enforce legislation prohibiting forced conversions, forced and child marriages, kidnapping, and trafficking, and abide by their international human rights commitments to combat slavery and human trafficking and uphold the rights of women and children,\u201d they said.<\/p>\n<p>Special Rapporteurs and other independent experts \u2013 such as the five endorsing Monday\u2019s statement from the Working Group on discrimination against women and girls \u2013 are part of the Special Procedures of the Human Rights Council.<\/p>\n<p>The are not UN staff, do not receive any salary, and are independent of any government or organising, serving in their own individual capacity.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/news.un.org\/feed\/view\/en\/story\/2023\/01\/1132482\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In their appeal to the authorities to stop the alleged abuse, the experts warned that teenagers&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11685","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-asia-pacific"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v21.0 (Yoast SEO v28.5) - 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