10/06/2020 Pakistan (International Christian Concern) – According to local sources, an arrest warrant has been issued by a court in Pakistan for Abdul Jabbar, the man responsible for the abduction, forced marriage, and forced conversion of Huma Younas. However, Jabbar remains at large more than a month after the arrest warrant was issued.
On September 4, Justice Nusrat Sikandar of the 3rd Judicial Magistrate City Court of East Karachi issued a non-bailable arrest warrant for Jabbar and two accomplices accused of abducting Huma in October 2019. The court issued the arrest warrant after Huma’s parents submitted a new petition challenging Jabbar’s marriage to Huma under the Sindh Child Marriage Restraint Act.
On October 10, 2019, Huma, a 14-year-old Christian girl, was abducted from her home by Jabbar while her parents were away at work. Jabbar then took Huma to a different province in Pakistan where he forcefully married her and forcefully converted her to Islam.
According to a study by the Movement for Solidarity and Peace Pakistan, an estimated 1,000 Christian and Hindu women are abducted, forcefully married, and forcefully converted to Islam every year. Sexual assaults and fraudulent marriages are used by perpetrators to entrap victims and authorities are often complicit.
The issue of religion is also often injected into cases of sexual assault to place victims from religious minority communities at a disadvantage. Playing upon religious biases, perpetrators know they can cover up and justify their crimes by introducing an element of religion.
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