ISLAMABAD: Expressing concern over the continued persecution of religious minorities in the country, the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) has called for an urgent legislation to criminalise forced conversions.
In its latest report, ‘A Breach of Faith: Freedom of Religion or Belief in 2021-22’, released on Tuesday, the HRCP expressed alarm over the state of religious freedom in the country. It said that forced conversion, particularly of Hindu girls in Sindh province, and desecration of places of worship of religious minorities as well as marginalisation of Ahmadiyya community remained “worryingly consistent” between July 2021 and June 2022.
In 2021 alone, at least 60 cases of forced conversion — most of them from Sindh, which hosts nearly 90 per cent of Pakistan’s Hindus — were reported in the local media, of which 70 per cent were girls under the age of 18, the report revealed.
Hindus account for nearly 2.1 per cent of Pakistan’s 207 million population.
Successive Pakistani governments have failed to stop the kidnapping and forced conversion of Hindu girls, and their subsequent marriages to Muslim men — in most cases, to their abductors — mainly due to pressure from Islamic groups.
Such incidents are frequently reported from Tharparkar, Umerkot and Ghotki districts of Sindh, where Hindus comprise over 50 per cent of the population.
Last month, a group of 12 rights experts at the UN had expressed alarm at the upsurge in such cases. “We are deeply troubled to hear that girls as young as 13 are being kidnapped from their families, trafficked to locations far from their homes, made to marry men sometimes twice their age, and coerced to convert to Islam, all in violation of international human rights law,” a statement by the UN experts said.
The HRCP, in its report, echoed the need for a representative and autonomous statutory national commission for minorities as well as concerted efforts by the state to counter sectarian violence.
It also flagged the large number of blasphemy cases — 585 in 2021 alone — registered against religious minorities. Referring to murders by mobs and fanatics over blasphemy allegations, the report called for steps to ensure that the blasphemy laws were not “weaponised by people to settle personal vendettas”.
The report revealed that 53 per cent of online hate speech in Pakistan was directed at the Ahmadiyyas.
The HRCP noted that attempts to enforce a standardised national curriculum had created an exclusionary narrative that had sidelined the minorities. The curriculum must be revised to eliminate any material that discriminated against religious minorities and sects or their faiths, it said.
The commission also called for re-evaluating quotas for religious minorities in education and employment and accountability mechanisms to ensure that these quotas are implemented. Additionally, it suggested that under no circumstances should job advertisements call for “non-Muslims only”, when recruiting sanitation workers.
The rights panel warned that unless corrective steps were implemented, Pakistan would continue to foster a climate of impunity for perpetrators of faith-based discrimination and violence, shrinking the already-narrow space for religious freedom even further.
In its latest report, ‘A Breach of Faith: Freedom of Religion or Belief in 2021-22’, released on Tuesday, the HRCP expressed alarm over the state of religious freedom in the country. It said that forced conversion, particularly of Hindu girls in Sindh province, and desecration of places of worship of religious minorities as well as marginalisation of Ahmadiyya community remained “worryingly consistent” between July 2021 and June 2022.
In 2021 alone, at least 60 cases of forced conversion — most of them from Sindh, which hosts nearly 90 per cent of Pakistan’s Hindus — were reported in the local media, of which 70 per cent were girls under the age of 18, the report revealed.
Hindus account for nearly 2.1 per cent of Pakistan’s 207 million population.
Successive Pakistani governments have failed to stop the kidnapping and forced conversion of Hindu girls, and their subsequent marriages to Muslim men — in most cases, to their abductors — mainly due to pressure from Islamic groups.
Such incidents are frequently reported from Tharparkar, Umerkot and Ghotki districts of Sindh, where Hindus comprise over 50 per cent of the population.
Last month, a group of 12 rights experts at the UN had expressed alarm at the upsurge in such cases. “We are deeply troubled to hear that girls as young as 13 are being kidnapped from their families, trafficked to locations far from their homes, made to marry men sometimes twice their age, and coerced to convert to Islam, all in violation of international human rights law,” a statement by the UN experts said.
The HRCP, in its report, echoed the need for a representative and autonomous statutory national commission for minorities as well as concerted efforts by the state to counter sectarian violence.
It also flagged the large number of blasphemy cases — 585 in 2021 alone — registered against religious minorities. Referring to murders by mobs and fanatics over blasphemy allegations, the report called for steps to ensure that the blasphemy laws were not “weaponised by people to settle personal vendettas”.
The report revealed that 53 per cent of online hate speech in Pakistan was directed at the Ahmadiyyas.
The HRCP noted that attempts to enforce a standardised national curriculum had created an exclusionary narrative that had sidelined the minorities. The curriculum must be revised to eliminate any material that discriminated against religious minorities and sects or their faiths, it said.
The commission also called for re-evaluating quotas for religious minorities in education and employment and accountability mechanisms to ensure that these quotas are implemented. Additionally, it suggested that under no circumstances should job advertisements call for “non-Muslims only”, when recruiting sanitation workers.
The rights panel warned that unless corrective steps were implemented, Pakistan would continue to foster a climate of impunity for perpetrators of faith-based discrimination and violence, shrinking the already-narrow space for religious freedom even further.