Colombo, Dec 11 (NationPress) Women and girls belonging to minority communities in Pakistan are facing an alarming crisis characterized by abductions that lead to forced marriages and coercion. Notably, the Christian and Hindu populations are enduring a profoundly rooted form of structural violence, as highlighted in a recent report.

According to findings from civil society, including submissions to United Nations (UN) bodies, analysis by the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP), and documentation by the Aurat Foundation in Islamabad, the Sri Lanka Guardian report stated that nearly 1,000 Hindu and Christian girls fall victim to abduction, forced conversion, and marriage every year in Pakistan, particularly in Sindh and southern Punjab.

It also noted that law enforcement often refuses to register kidnapping reports, while lower courts accept statements from minors under duress, and clerics approve conversions without any oversight.

“The adoption of Pakistan’s National Commission for Minorities’ Rights Bill on December 3, 2025, by a joint parliamentary session, marks another instance of the state signaling reform while ensuring that no real changes happen in the legal and ideological frameworks that support systemic discrimination. Passed with 160 votes in favor against 79 opposed, the bill was stripped of its most significant provisions – suo motu powers and an overriding-effect clause – prior to its approval, rendering the new body largely symbolic,” the report stated.

According to the report, the Pakistani Law Minister Azam Nazeer Tarar presented the Bill as a long-overdue mechanism to institutionalize minority issues, but parliamentary discussions before its passage ensured it neither confronts nor can confront the “deeply embedded framework of Islamization that has influenced Pakistan’s governance for decades.”

It further highlighted that the newly established Commission enters a landscape marked by entrenched structural inequalities, intermittent incidents of mob violence, and a constitutional framework that continues to define citizenship and rights from a majority perspective.

“Since independence, Pakistan has seen a continuous tightening of minority rights. Demographically, minorities made up approximately 23% of the population in the 1951 census (including East Pakistan), but now account for about 3-4%. Hindus and Christians each represent just under 2% of the population, while Sikhs, Parsis, Bahais, and Kalash communities comprise mere fractions of a percentage point,” the report noted.

“This dramatic decline reflects decades of insecurity, biased legislation, and routine societal violence that have led to ongoing out-migration, especially among Hindus and Christians,” it concluded.

The report underscored that, in essence, the newly established National Commission for Minorities’ Rights in Pakistan acts as a symbolic, politically motivated intervention that preserves the status quo of institutionalized discrimination.

“While it provides minority communities with an official platform to voice grievances and document abuses, it lacks the necessary authority to disrupt the systemic patterns of persecution,” it emphasized.