Geneva, April 23: United Nations human rights experts have sounded a grave alarm over the systematic abduction, forced religious conversion, and coerced marriages targeting women and girls from minority communities in Pakistan, warning that an entrenched culture of impunity is enabling these violations to persist unchecked across the country. The experts issued their warning on April 23, 2025, calling on Islamabad to take urgent and concrete action.

Scale and Pattern of Forced Conversions in 2025

According to the UN experts, in 2025, approximately 75 per cent of women and girls subjected to forced conversion through marriage in Pakistan were Hindus, while the remaining 25 per cent were Christians. These figures paint a stark picture of religiously targeted persecution against non-Muslim communities.

Nearly 80 per cent of all reported incidents occurred in Sindh province, Pakistan's southern heartland, which has long been home to a significant Hindu minority population. Girls aged between 14 and 18 years were identified as the primary targets, though experts noted that some cases involved even younger victims — a deeply troubling indicator of child rights violations running in parallel.

Systemic Discrimination and Climate of Impunity

The UN experts described the scale and persistence of these abuses as evidence of systemic discrimination against non-Muslim women and girls across Pakistan. They noted that victims are coerced into converting to Islam to marry Muslim men, often under conditions of physical and sexual abuse, exploitation, and severe psychological trauma.

"These women and girls endure a continuous sense of terror, face coercion and are deprived of their freedom of religion or belief and autonomy under patriarchal and political pressures. This must stop," the experts stated emphatically.

Women and girls from economically marginalised backgrounds face heightened vulnerability, the experts noted, as poverty and social exclusion compound the risks they already face as religious minorities. The resulting trauma — including social stigma, displacement, and loss of identity — has long-lasting consequences for survivors and their families.

Critically, the experts flagged that law enforcement authorities frequently dismiss complaints filed by victims' families, fail to investigate or prosecute cases in a timely manner, and often neglect to properly verify the age of victims — effectively shielding perpetrators from accountability.

Key Demands Placed Before Pakistani Authorities

The UN experts issued a set of firm recommendations to the Government of Pakistan, urging immediate legislative and enforcement action. These include:

• Raising the minimum age of marriage to 18 across all provinces and territories without exception.
• Criminalising forced religious conversion as a distinct and standalone criminal offence under Pakistani law.
• Strictly enforcing existing laws on human trafficking and sexual violence.
• Ensuring prompt, impartial, and effective investigation into all allegations, in line with recommendations from UN treaty bodies.
• Providing comprehensive, gender-responsive support services for survivors, including safe shelters, legal aid, psychological counselling, and reintegration programmes.

The experts also called for child-centric protection mechanisms, recognising that a significant proportion of victims are minors who require specialised care and legal protection beyond what standard adult survivor frameworks provide.

Root Causes: What Pakistan Has Failed to Address

The UN experts were unsparing in their assessment of the Pakistani government's failure to tackle the structural drivers of this crisis. They cited gender inequality rooted in patriarchal norms, poverty, social exclusion, discrimination against religious minorities, religious intolerance, and rampant impunity as the core root causes that have gone unaddressed.

"Any change of religion or belief must be genuinely free from coercion, and marriage must be based on full and free consent, which is not legally possible when the victim is a child," the experts stated, reaffirming the foundational principles of international human rights law.

This condemnation comes amid a broader pattern of international concern over Pakistan's treatment of religious minorities, including Hindus, Christians, Ahmadis, and Sikhs. Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, and multiple UN Special Rapporteurs have repeatedly flagged Pakistan's failure to protect minority communities, particularly women and girls, from religiously motivated violence and coercion.

Broader Implications and What Comes Next

The statement from UN experts carries significant diplomatic weight. Pakistan, which regularly faces scrutiny during its Universal Periodic Review (UPR) at the UN Human Rights Council, will now face renewed pressure to demonstrate legislative and enforcement progress on minority rights.

For the Hindu and Christian minority communities in Sindh and across Pakistan, this international spotlight offers a rare moment of visibility — but advocates warn that without binding legal reforms and genuine political will from Islamabad, the pattern of abductions and forced conversions is likely to continue. "Freedom of religion or belief and equality must be ensured for all without discrimination," the experts concluded, in a message directed squarely at Pakistan's political and judicial establishment.

The international community, including India, which has consistently raised the issue of persecution of Pakistani Hindus at multilateral forums, is expected to cite this UN statement in upcoming diplomatic engagements. Civil society organisations are also likely to push for these findings to be referenced in Pakistan's next UPR cycle.