Coinciding with the expert meeting of the International Religious Freedom or Belief Alliance, the high-level event, hosted by Poland, Hungary, and ADF International, brought together the UN Special Rapporteur for Freedom of Religion or Belief and other actors to discuss challenges and solutions to the problem of forced conversions.
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On the International Day of the Girl Child, Catholic Bishops have taken action to challenge religious freedom violations against teenage girls.
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This International Day of the Girl Child (11 October), many girls in South Asia fear for their safety. 14-year-old Maira is one of the estimated 1000 girls that are “converted” against their will through a forced marriage in Pakistan every year.
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Maira* loved to sing hymns at her church’s Easter service. This Easter, she is forced to hide rather than be able to join in celebrations. She had been abducted, forcibly married to a much older Muslim man, and must now wait in hiding after escaping. Forced “conversion” through marriage affects an estimated 1,000 girls from religious minorities in Pakistan every year.
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This International Women’s Day, Christian girls in Pakistan fear for their safety. Maira Shabaz knows the dangerous reality more than most. She escaped her captor – but not before he brutalised, blackmailed, married and forcibly “converted” her from her Christian faith.
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In Pakistan, a fourteen-year-old girl and her family were forced into hiding after she escaped her abductor who forcibly married her. She escaped and gave a statement to the court saying she was abused and blackmailed.
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