A 21-year-old Christian woman named Monica Jennifer was reported to have disappeared from her home in Rawalpindi, Pakistan, on November 17. In the following days, she reappeared in court, where she made statements saying she had willingly converted to Islam and married a Muslim neighbor. There are claims that her brother has spoken out against it as a “sham marriage” and said she had been kidnapped and forced to convert due to intimidation.
According to Morning Star news, her brother and family members have reported that she was a dedicated, “spirit-filled” Christian before the alleged kidnapping, and, according to them, she would never willingly leave her family and faith unless it was under duress. Her brother said she had been led on and even blackmailed by the Muslim neighbor, Waleed Ahmad, over a number of months leading to the kidnapping, until she felt she was left with no choice.
This tragic case is a reiteration of a phenomenon that has been well-documented in Pakistan and parts of India in recent years: Christian (and other religious-minority) girls and women being kidnapped and forcibly converted and married to Muslim men — while local officials are largely complicit or have turned a blind eye to the practice.
Forced conversion and coerced marriage of religious-minority women is a systematic problem with hundreds of cases documented in recent years alone. In some cases, when family members have sought justice, they have been threatened (including with blasphemy accusations) simply for having filed cases. In many cases, justice is never brought or served. For family members who are regularly marginalized and live under threat in a society that will often blame them rather than the accused, the coercion necessary for consent is already there.
This is not simply a local issue in Pakistan, where Christians and other religious minorities are a small minority of the population. Religious freedom is a concern of the global Church, where millions of believers face persecution for calling out to God. The complicity of local authorities (police and courts that either refuse to act on these cases or drag their feet indefinitely) is a large part of the problem, as it leaves the issue unaddressed, normalizes it, and puts others at risk.
We who believe should be aware of these types of attacks on God’s children and call on our churches and prayer networks to know, pray, advocate, and stand with our persecuted and afflicted brothers and sisters. Silence and disinterest only means we are complicit.
For those who want a deeper look into the kind of persecution facing Christians and other religious minorities in Pakistan, we recommend the powerful book Under Threat of Death: A Mother’s Faith in the Face of Injustice, Imprisonment, and Persecution by Shagufta Kausar. In her gripping first-person account, Shagufta shares how she was falsely accused under Pakistan’s blasphemy laws, the intense suffering her family endured, and the terrifying reality of imprisonment. Yet through every trial, she testifies to how the Lord faithfully strengthened, sustained, and comforted them. Many persecuted believers around the world will find their own story reflected in hers.
The book is available here through the Back to Jerusalem bookstore:
