Pakistan: Human rights experts have denounced the abduction, forced marriages, and conversions of girls from Pakistan’s religious minority and urged the government to immediately put an end to such actions.

“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 noted in a statement.

The UN experts called on Pakistan’s government “to take immediate steps to prevent and thoroughly investigate these acts.” In response, Pakistan’s federal minister for human rights, Mr. Riaz Hussain Pirzada, told the media that the country’s administration is making every effort to preserve minorities’ human rights.

The UN experts’ statement coincided with ongoing reports of abductions and forced conversions of young women in Pakistan, a country with a majority-Muslim population. According to activists, a number of girls, mostly teens, from the Hindu community, mainly in the southern region of Sindh, are victims of this act every year, which is encouraged by religious leaders and organizations.

Forced conversions and forced marriages are forbidden in Islam. According to the 2017 census, there are 4.4 million Hindus in Pakistan 2.14 percent of the total population while Christians number around 2.6 million, or 1.27 percent of the population.

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