Photo: Reuters. |
The Catholic Charity
Aid to the Church in Need-Italy reports that the
Sindh High Court in Karachi issued the Feb. 3 ruling in the case of 14-year-old
Huma Younus, who was taken from her home on
Oct. 10, 2019, and later married to a radical Muslim man.
According to the
charity, which is supporting the family, judge Muhammad Iqbal Kalhoro and
Irshad Ali Shah ruled that the Catholic girl’s marriage to her alleged
abductor, Abdul Jabbar, is valid under Sharia law because the child has already
had her first menstrual cycle.
“Once again justice
has been defeated and once again has been proved that our state does not
consider Christians to be Pakistani citizens,” mother Nagheena Younus told Aid
to the Church in Need-Italy after the hearing.
Younus’ parents said
their daughter’s marriage violates the Sindh Child Marriage Restraint Act
forbidding the marriage of girls age 18 and younger. Although the law was
passed in 2014, it has not yet been applied.
“We hoped that the law
could have been applied for the first time in this case,” lawyer Tabassum
Yousaf was quoted as saying. “But evidently in Pakistan, these laws are
formulated and approved only to improve the image of the country in front of
the international community, [and to] ask for funds for development and trade
Pakistani products on the European market for free.”
Muslim-majority
Pakistan ranks as the fifth-worst country in the world when it comes to
Christian persecution on the Open Doors USA 2020 World Watch List.
As the U.S. Commission
on International Religious Freedom reports, it’s estimated
that as many as 1,000 women and girls are forcibly converted to Islam each year
in Pakistan, many of whom are kidnapped, married and subject to rape.
Last year, Pakistan
lawmakers rejected a national bill that
would have raised the child marriage age to 18 after it was opposed by Minister
for Religious Affairs Noorul Haq Qadari and other officials.
According to Aid to the Church in Need, Younus was due to appear
in court during last Monday’s hearing, as was requested during a previous
hearing held on Jan 16. However, Younus was not present for the hearing.
The judges ordered a
medical examination of the child to verify her age, a request made by the
family’s lawyer. However, Yousaf does not trust a fair examination will take
place.
“It is clear that
since [investigation officer Akhtar Hussain] is in charge, there is a high
probability that the test results will be falsified,” the lawyer argued. “But
we keep hoping that the girl’s minor age will be proven so that she could at
least be entrusted to a center for women, and taken away from her rapist.”
The next court hearing
in the matter is scheduled for March 4. But even if the girl’s age can be
verified, the decision to validate the marriage because of menstruation reduces
the chance that Jabbar will be held to account for his actions, the charity
reports.
Nagheena Younus vowed
to take the case all the way to the Pakistan Supreme Court if need be.
“This morning’s
sentence casts shame on the Pakistani judicial system,” ACN-Italy Director
Alessandro Monteduro said in a statement. “It is
unimaginable that Sharia can prevail over the law of the state. We express all
our outrage, but we won’t give up for Huma and the over a thousand girls that
every year in Pakistan are kidnapped, raped, converted by force to Islam and
forced to marry their kidnapper.”
“Even today we have
learned that all of that is legitimate, because in Pakistan even an 8- or
9-year-old girl can legally be given as a wife if she has already had her
period,” he added.
According to AsiaNews, the court
allowed the child to file an affidavit declaring that she got married on her
own free will. However, Yousaf contends that such an affidavit can't be filed
legally until the child is presented with an identity card number at the age of
18.
News of the judges’
ruling drew much criticism on social media.
“Underage #Catholic girl Huma Younus &
other girls can be married as long as they have had their first menstrual
cycle, the High Court in #Pakistan ruled. This is so wrong
and disgusting!” former European Parliament member Marijana Petir tweeted. “I urge the @EU_Commission and the
international community to stop all relationship with Pakistan.”
Popular Pakistani
actor, writer and choreographer, Osman Khalid Butt, also voiced his dismay on
Twitter.
“I immediately Googled
the Sindh Court ruling thinking there must be some mistake,” he wrote in
a tweet. “How could they
consider a marriage valid when it was done under duress, after an abduction
& forced conversion? Boy, was I naive.”
For the past two
years, Pakistan has been labeled by the
United States State Department as a “country of particular concern” for
tolerating or engaging in severe violations of religious freedom.
In addition to the
tolerance of forced abductions and marriages as well as societal persecution
against religious minorities, Pakistan is the world’s leader when
it comes to the number of people imprisoned for blasphemy.
According to blasphemy
law critic Shaan Taseer, a son of the late Punjab governor Salmaan Taseer,
about 200 people or more are in jail in Pakistan on blasphemy charges with as
many of 40 of them on death row.
Source:
https://www.christianpost.com/news/pakistani-court-allows-marriage-kidnapped-christian-girl-because-she-had-her-first-period.html?uid=*|UNIQID|*
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