UN rights experts urge Pakistani authorities to end forced child marriage

On Monday the United Nations’ rights experts condemned an increase in forced marriages, conversions, and kidnappings of girls from Pakistan’s religious minority and urged the government to immediately put an end to such practices.

“The group of around a dozen independent United Nations rights experts includes the UN special rapporteurs on the sale and sexual exploitation of children, contemporary forms of slavery, violence against women, and minority issues,” the statement read.

“We are deeply troubled to hear that girls as young as 13 are being kidnapped from their families, trafficked to locations far from their homes, made to marry men sometimes twice their age, and coerced to convert to Islam,” the experts said. They pointed out that abductors often “force their victims to sign documents which falsely attest to their being of legal age for marriage as well as marrying and converting of free will”.

The experts demanded that the Pakistani government act right away to stop and fully examine these activities.