The Christian parents of a 10-year-old girl in Pakistan who was abducted and forcibly converted to Islam last month, fear she could be sold to sex traffickers, sources said.
A month after Laiba Suhail was abducted from her home in Chak 233-RB Ikhlaq Town, Faisalabad District, Punjab Province on 12 February by four non-Muslims at the behest of a Muslim, Shaukat Shah, officials have refused to prosecute, said her father, Suhail Masih.
Shah is well-known in the area for forcibly converting children to Islam under duress, coercing them to file court statements that they wilfully converted and later taking them from shelter homes on the pretext of giving them religious education, Masih said.
A court sent his daughter to a women’s shelter at her request after police on 15 February informed Masih that she had filed an application claiming she had converted to Islam. Masih said that he has since learned that Shah has taken custody of her from the shelter.
“This is Shah’s modus operandi,” Masih said. “No one knows what happens to his victims after they are handed to him. We fear that he and his accomplices are involved in sex trafficking, and they sell these minor girls when they see that the families are in no position to pursue the matter further in courts.”
He lamented that the Roshan Wala Police Station has not taken action to recover his daughter despite the family’s registration of an abduction case against Shah.
“It is a blatant lie that my daughter has changed her faith willingly,” he said. “Whatever little religious education she has is from the church’s Sunday school. She has had no interaction with Muslims because she used to stay at home all day long to take care of me and her mother.”
“I had to pull Laiba out of school early on because we were not able to afford her education due to our meagre financial resources,” he said.
Masih said he is determined to rescue his daughter at all costs.
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