Pakistani Hindus to Hold Protest Rally Against Forced Conversion, Abduction & Marriage of Minors

Pakistan’s minority Hindu community has planned to organise a protest rally at the Sindh Assembly on March 30 to protest against the rising cases of forced conversions, abductions and marriages of minors.

The rally will be held under the banner of Pakistan Darawer Ittehad, an organisation working for minority rights in this Islamic nation.

Posters released by the organisation on social media said the rally is being held to protest the abduction, forced conversion, and marriages of minor girls and forced possession of land belonging to the Hindu community in the Sindh province.

“The government has turned a blind eye to the abductions, forced conversions, and fake marriages of our women and girls,” alleged chairman of Pakistan Darawer Ittehad, Faqir Shiva Kuchi. The organization is demanding passing of a stalled bill against forced conversion and marriages in the Sindh Assembly.

In 2019, the issue of abducting and forcible conversion of Hindu girls in various districts of Sindh province was discussed in the Sindh Assembly.

But the bill, which criminalised forcible religious conversions was later rejected in the assembly. A similar bill was again proposed, but it got rejected in 2021.

In January this year, as many as 12 United Nations rights experts expressed alarm over the rising incidents of kidnapping, forced conversions, and marriages of girls as young as 13 in Pakistan.

According to the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan’s report, around 1,000 girls are forcibly converted to Islam every year. Most of the converted girls belong to the impoverished Hindu community from the Sindh province.

Only 75 lakh Hindus live in Muslim-majority Pakistan. Hindus constitute only 2.1 per cent and Christians about 1.6 per cent according to the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan estimates. The majority of Pakistan’s Hindu population is settled in Sindh province.