Committee on Forced Conversion urged opening up to public

KARACHI: Sindh’s protection of minority and human rights groups/NGOs have hailed the announcement of the visit of the Parliamentary Committee on Protection from Forced Conversion to various parts of the province, saying the commission’s members should meet the victims and their families or guardians separately to collect concrete evidence about the prevailing trend of forced conversion.

The members of the Parliamentary Committee had announced their schedule to visit Sindh, particularly districts Umerkot, Ghotki, and Tharparkar from October 6 to 9, where an unprecedented increase of forced conversion of religion has been witnessed. The activists and civil society organisations (CSOs), including Centre for Social Justice (CSJ) and the People’s Commission for Minorities’ Rights (PCMR), said a trendy phenomenon was observed that in Sindh and Punjab, girls belonging to religious minority were being kidnapped, forcibly converted, married and assaulted.

Executive Director CSJ Peter Jacob, whose organisation monitors cases of forced conversions across Punjab and Sindh, has reiterated the demand to launch similar investigations in cases reported in Punjab. To this end, CSJ had earlier shared a list of 74 incidents of allegedly forced conversions in Punjab with members of the Parliamentary Committee.

In November 2019, the committee comprising members of both the National Assembly and the Senate was notified, having the mandate to officially probe into and intervene into the cases of forced conversions.

The upcoming visit of the committee was expected to be beneficial to all the victims of forced conversion after the participation of the people and groups over the provision of evidences to the committee, Jacob said.