Pakistan high court upholds forced marriage of abducted Catholic minor
from Catholic Herald:
The Sindh High Court in Karachi, Pakistan, has validated the marriage of a 13-year-old Catholic girl to a Muslim man who abducted her.
Arzoo Raja had been taken from outside her home on October 13 and two days later, as the family searched for her, police announced that they had received marriage papers claiming that Arzoo was 18 and that she had converted to Islam to marry her 44-year-old abductor, Ali Azhar.
The family were able to provide the authorities with an official birth certificate proving Arzoo was 13, and they sought legal representation from Aid to the Church in Need to challenge the marriage’s validity.
On October 27, however, Arzoo appeared before the high court and gave evidence confessing that she had recited the Islamic proclamation of faith.
The court then issued an order validating the marriage, declaring that the 13-year-old had freely consented to her conversion and marriage:
“The petitioner initially belonged to the Christian religion. However, after the passage of time, the petitioner understood and realized that Islam is a universal religion and she asked her parents and other family members to embrace Islam but they flatly refused,” the court said.
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