Why has the British establishment sidelined Maira Shahbaz?
Maira Shahbaz, a Pakistani Catholic schoolgirl, was abducted, raped and forced to sign a statement that she had converted to Islam. Maira managed to escape but is now in hiding out of fear of reprisal. Despite the clear danger to Maira’s life, the British Government has failed to grant her asylum after a petition to do so was lodge by ACN Britain.
By Georgia L. Gilholy
Maira’s mother and siblings. (Credit: Aid to the Church in Need)
On 28 April 2020, Maira Shahbaz, a 14-year-old Catholic schoolgirl, claimed to have been kidnapped at gunpoint by three men in her neighbourhood of Faisalabad, in Pakistan’s eastern province of Punjab. The assailants recorded themselves sexually assaulting her and threatened the public release of the footage. She says she was forced to marry one of them – 45-year-old Mohamad Nakash Tariq – and subsequently coerced into signing a statement affirming her conversion to Islam. Nakash denies the allegations.
Maira Shahbaz. (Credit: Aid to the Church in Need)
The case is heartbreaking, but sadly unexceptional. Shahbaz is one of the 1,000-plus Christian and Hindu girls in Pakistan who are kidnapped, forced to marry their captors, and compelled to sign statements of conversion every year.
Shahbaz was placed in a women’s shelter by local authorities. However, the Lahore High Court then ruled that the marriage and conversion were valid and that she should therefore be ‘returned’ to her husband. She managed to once again escape with the help of relatives. Nakash subsequently denounced her relatives for ‘kidnapping’ her and accused Shahbaz of apostasy, a crime that often carries the death penalty in Pakistan. Given the barrage of abuse and death threats she and her relatives received, and the Pakistani legal system’s inability to handle her case appropriately, Shahbaz’s lawyer believes that to remain in Pakistan is nothing short of a death sentence for the family.
In October 2020, Aid to the Church in Need’s UK branch launched a petition, which gained 12,000 signatures in support of Shahbaz‘s asylum application. Yet the matter has is yet to receive much political or press attention. A video statement from Shahbaz was released at a parliamentary event on 25 November 2020 marking #RedWednesday, ACN’s annual day in honour of Christian persecution. In February, the petition was delivered to Fiona Bruce, the prime minister’s special envoy for freedom of religion or belief. This summer, after help from ACN’s parliamentary connections the home secretary Priti Patel, Sir Edward Leigh MP, Fiona Bruce MP and, ACN UK’sHead of Press and Information, met in the House of Commons to discuss the case. The government is yet to issue further clarification about how it intends to respond – if it intends to at all.
Meanwhile, a judge recently ruled that a Somalian double rapist must be allowed to stay in the UK on human-rights grounds because he would face ‘degrading’ treatment in his home country, and due to his poor ‘mental health’. The sad reality of Britain’s asylum system is that in many instances, it safeguards criminals while remaining inflexible to the needs of innocent civilians fleeing danger, failing both asylum seekers and the fabric of British society. The government must be pressured to reform the asylum system so that it prioritises the most vulnerable, such as children and persecuted minorities, of whom Christians are currently the most numerous of any global religious grouping.
Shahbaz’s plight has obvious parallels to the Asia Bibi case. Bibi is a Catholic woman also hailing from Shahbaz’s home province. After a minor dispute in 2009, Bibi was arrested, charged with blasphemy and sentenced to death by hanging. On death row, she was attacked in prison. She was acquitted by Pakistan’s Supreme Court in October 2018, a decision that prompted mass protests, and in November 2018, the Pakistani government, which had encouraged the protests against Bibi, agreed to issue a Soviet-style ban on her bid to depart the country.
The delayed process and eventual rejection of Bibi’s petition by the Home Office were, according to reports at the time, partly due to concerns that her presence in the UK would risk causing ‘unrest among certain sections of the community’ – undoubtedly referring to Islamist extremists. It is as yet unclear whether these same concerns are why the UK government has not responded to Shahbaz’s case. However, given that Shahbaz’s case appears relatively less contentious, compared to the widespread backlash against Bibi for her alleged blasphemy, our inaction may well be just the result of our leaders’ cold and careless approach to the less ‘fashionable’ issue of global Christian persecution, with the exception of a small few. Or is it that the mainstream journalists who shape the news cycle simply feel the publicity sparked by the Bibi case was quite enough, thank you very much, and that the perceived bible-thumping relics among us have had their moment to complain about their international mistreatment for at least another decade?
I would suggest that our inability to understand the persistence of religious faith, in general, is also at the heart of the issue. In the words of historian Ronald Hutton, “Modern western society is apparently unique in the human record in its utter lack of provision of any generally or officially accepted frame for [the experience of supernatural phenomena]”. How can a society and its political infrastructure sympathise with Christian persecution abroad, when we fail to understand why those martyred or mistreated as a result continue to live as they do? Indeed, this is just as clear at home, when we consistently frame oppression in terms of generally immutable characteristics such as race, gender and sexuality, tending to sweep anything mildly transcendent under the proverbial rug. How can Christians, or other religious minorities ‘really’ be the victims if they choose to carry on believing what they do?
Maira‘s case may just be one among many girls tragically forced to marry their persecutors, but it exposes the deep inconsistencies at the heart of the British approach to asylum, and to the global Christian communities. As a backbench MP, Boris Johnson led calls for Asia Bibi to be given asylum, but as is the case with many issues, the PM has failed to put his fiery backbench rhetoric into practice. If the government is at least half-serious about offering safety for those fleeing tyranny – as its introduction of a special Hong Kong visa seems to suggest – it must grant Maira Shahbaz and her family asylum immediately.
On Red Wednesday 2021, ACN is launching a report into the abduction, forced conversion and sexual victimisation of Christian women and girls not only in Pakistan but all over the world. This report will be available on ACN’s Week of Witness page on 24th November. Please click below for more details and please subscribe to our newsletter to be informed when the report is launched.