'Heinous Rights Violations': UN Experts Alarmed By Abuses Against Minority Girls in Pakistan
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UN experts have condemned the 'heinous human rights violations' in Pakistan, expressing concern for the lack of protection for young women and girls from minority communities. Christian and Hindu girls are particularly vulnerable to forced religious conversion, abduction, trafficking, child, early and forced marriage, domestic servitude, and sexual violence. The experts criticized the validation of forced marriages and religious conversions by courts, often using religious law to justify keeping victims with their abductors. They stressed that child, early, and forced marriage cannot be justified on religious or cultural grounds and called for laws to ensure marriages are contracted with free and full consent, raising the minimum age for marriage to 18. The experts also highlighted specific cases of forced religious conversions and urged Pakistan to bring perpetrators to justice and enforce existing legal protections.

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https://www.news18.com/world/un-experts-alarmed-by-rights-abuses-against-minority-girls-in-pakistan-8849100.html