Gujranwala Christian Girl: Father seeks justice for daughter

Gujranwala Christian Girl: Father seeks justice for minor daughter. The dad of a Christian young lady who was purportedly abducted, changed over to Islam and coercively wedded to a moderately aged man in Ferozewala space of Gujranwala is looking for justice for his daughter and family.

Shahid Gill, who is a tailor from Arif Town, said his neighbour’s, offered to employ his 13-year-old little girl (Gujranwala Christian Girl) as a salesgirl at his cosmetics adornments shop. In any case, Gill wouldn’t send his girl to work at S’s shop.

He said that S, who is Muslim, kept on requesting help in his business, and due to his (Gill’s) helpless foundation, he accordingly permitted his little girl to work at his neighbour’s store.

Gill revealed to Dawn.com that on May 20, he discovered his girl missing at home and was educated by certain neighbors that the young lady was seen heading off to some place on a pickup truck with S and some different people.

He said he held up a seizing objection in Ferozewala police headquarters and a case was enrolled on May 29 against S and seven others.

Examination Officer SI Liaqat disclosed to Dawn.com that two of the suspects were arrested however the young lady later showed up under the watchful eye of a nearby court where her assertion was recorded under Section 164 of the Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC).

The young lady submitted in the court that she had gone out energetically to change over to Islam and later agreement marriage with S, as per the cop.

He said the court had permitted the young lady to go with her implied spouse and requested the police to subdue the case, following which police had carried out the court request.

Be that as it may, the young lady’s dad, Gill, said his little girl is 13-and-a-half years old  (Gujranwala Christian Girl) and along these lines the court ought not have acknowledged her assertion of changing over and wedding energetically.

The Child Marriage Restraint Act 1929 states that a marriage can’t be enrolled of a “kid” — which means a male who is under 18 years old, and a female who is under 16 years old.

A birth authentication of the young lady gave by the Punjab government and shared by her family showed that she was brought into the world on October 17, 2007, which means she is 13 as of now.

Gill revealed to Dawn.com that in the wake of hearing his interests, the adjudicator had said he would go with the young lady’s assertion.

He said S was at that point wedded and had four kids including three girls and a child.

The complainant asserted that his girl was attracted and changed over and wedded without wanting to and that she may have done this under coercion. It’s a human rights‘ issue.

He requested of the specialists to affirm his little girl’s age from the National Database and Registration Authority (Nadra) and give them equity.

Gill said he had additionally presented another application to police to hold an investigation into the matter.

Minority rights association Center for Social Justice (CSJ) had said last year that in excess of 160 sketchy transformations of ladies and underage young ladies from strict minorities in the nation had been accounted for in the media somewhere in the range of 2013 and 2020.

As per CSJ information, around 52% of the occurrences of supposed constrained transformations had happened in Punjab, 44pc in Sindh, 1.23pc each in the government region and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, while one case (0.62pc) was accounted for from Balochistan.

The Associated Press had announced in December that almost 1,000 young ladies from strict minorities are compelled to change over to Islam in the country every year, to a great extent to prepare for relationships that are under the lawful age and non-consensual.

Following the distribution of the report, Foreign Office representative Zahid Hafeez Chaudhri had expressed that there were no “regulated” constrained changes in Pakistan.

He said that tests into the charges of constrained changes uncovered that a large portion of them were “imaginary, politically inspired or dependent on the mala fide expectation of our naysayers to censure Pakistan in the worldwide local area”.

Gujranwala Christian Girl’s story is initially covered by DAWN.