Pakistani Christian girls trafficked to China as brides
Aug 10, 2019
Islamabad (Pakistan) August 10, 2019 (ANI): The girls from Christian minority community in Pakistan are not only forcibly married to Chinese but are trafficked to China and subsequently subject to prostitution. Various Pakistani media reports reveal that church clerics of Pakistan and the Chinese traffickers, who are working in liaison, are using the medium of marriage to send the innocent women across the border. Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) crackdown in the month of May this year had confirmed that more than 100 girls had been trafficked till then. Different reports are suggestive of at least 700 such marriages in last one year. Some experts have also termed it an exercise to meet the growing demand of foreign brides in the county, which is suffering owing to rising gender imbalance, caused by its one-child policy. The modus operandi of perpetrators has been to target impoverished Christian families and lure them into marrying off their daughters against significant amount of money. Both the daughter and parents are promised a good life. However, once the marriage is done the girls are transported to China to endure a life of suffering. They are subject to slave-treatment by the owners are made to earn for them through prostitution. Christian activists call it a conspiracy against their religion. They accuse Pakistan establishment of complicit in the crime. Pakistani authorities, they say have given in to the pressure of religious hardliners in the country who are against the existence of any religion except Islam in Pakistan. Christians have time and again accused Pakistan establishment of hatching a conspiracy against them. Asia bibi is one example who was on death row, before being set free by the Supreme Court for merely touching a glass of water which Islamists had asked her not to.
