Persecution of Pakistani Christians: US ambassador-at-large for international religious freedom points out here that the sadly recurring phenomenon of the kidnapping and forced marriage of girls from Christian and Hindu families in Pakistan is a matter that goes way beyond Pakistan itself. Those who perpetrate these crimes are well-funded and well-connected, to the degree that this has become a matter of international human trafficking.
Pakistan’s Orthodox Christian community is as vulnerable to this persecution as are the rest of Pakistan’s Christians. This abuse cries out for attention from international human rights organizations. Please pray that the Christian community in Pakistan will be able to endure this martyrdom and experience a resurrection, and that relief will soon come to this courageous and long-suffering Christian community.
For previous coverage of the persecution of Christians in Pakistan, see here.
“Hindu, Christian women ‘marketed’ by Pak as ‘concubines’ in China: US official,” Shillong Times, December 9, 2020:
NEW YORK: Pakistan is marketing Hindu and Christian women as “concubines” and “forced brides” to China, according to the top US diplomat for religious freedom, Samuel Brownback.
One of the sources of “forced brides” for Chinese men are “religious minorities, Christian and Hindu women, being marketed as concubines and as forced as brides into China”, Brownback told reporters on Tuesday.
That was happening “because there’s not effective support and there’s discrimination against religious minorities that make them more vulnerable,” he said.
He mentioned this as one of the reasons for designating Pakistan as a country of particular concern (CPC) under the International Religious Freedom Act.
Because of the one-child policy imposed by China for decades, there is an acute shortage of women given the cultural preference for boys leading to Chinese men importing women from other countries as brides, mistresses and labourers….
“Pakistan has half of the world’s people that are locked up for apostasy or blasphemy,” he said….