Morning Star

Is there a woman shortage?

If the country of Pakistan is 95% Muslim, why is it that the Muslim men must kidnap Christians and Hindu women for brides? There is no indication that polygamy is at the heart of this age-old phenomenon, but that might explain why over 1,000 women are snatched and forced to convert to Islam. The only hint offered in this piece is that "conversions" are thought to be a blessing for these communities.

According to data collected by Fides sources, there are about 700 Christian women in Pakistan each year who are kidnapped and forced to forced conversion. Most cases are recorded in the Punjab, province of central Pakistan where Islamic extremism thrives in society and politics. Due to security reasons the name is not mentioned, a Catholic nun who in Punjab helps victims of forced conversions, told Fides that she receives, on average, a report every week. According to the religious, the phenomenon is growing for several reasons: "First of all, women are considered worthless goods and those of religious minorities are doubly enslaved." Furthermore, "economic crisis and poverty push many people to seek refuge in faith, and the conversion of a new faithful to Islam is considered a merit for heaven.

This week there will be a meeting in Islamabad to explore the question and beg for this practice to stop. While the Christians have to "make nice" and appeal to the liberality of authentic Islam, we have to look at the facts:

• this happens in regions that cling to traditional Islam;
• these regions have been Muslim well over 1000 years;
• to say that this behaviour isn't Islamic is absurd;
• the fact that women are chattel is undisputed by the Qur'an;
• if Islam had a dignified view of women, it would have surfaced by now.

We wish these ministers well, but the odds are slim of influencing such a traditionally Muslim region with ideas of religious liberty and authentic femininity. Prayers for the poor women trapped in such marriages and the families who have lost their dear children (and grandchildren.

By the way, while there are always those who claim that poverty leads people to cling to "god 'n guns" the upscale women of Pakistan are also becoming more religious:

All the women working in the information technology division of the Bank of Punjab's headquarters in the western Pakistani city of Lahore wear headscarves tightly wound around their cheeks and chin, framing their faces as they tap at their keyboards. A year or so ago not one covered their heads with the hijab.

"I was the first," says 28-year-old Shumaila, as she waited with some impatience in the city's iStore for her new £800 Apple MacBook to be loaded with the software she had ordered.

"I started reading the Qur'an properly and praying five times a day. No one made me wear the hijab. That would be impossible," she laughs brightly. "I showed the way to the other girls at work."

They are not alone. Though there are no statistics and most evidence is anecdotal, a new wave of interest in more conservative strands of Islam among wealthier and better educated women in Pakistan appears clear.

It is part of a broader cultural and religious shift seen in the country over decades but which observers say has accelerated in the past 10 years.

Sort of undermines the poverty argument...

Islam and modernism

This British newspaper gives a searing account of a woman who was married at the age of five and given to her husband when she was fourteen.

Dressed in a fancy new outfit, little Samina Shah thought she was getting ready for her birthday party.  Instead she was being married off — having just turned five.  The Islamic ceremony effectively ended her childhood and paved the way for years of abuse.

She used to dread evenings when she would have to tearfully face the advances of her husband. The marriage was eventually consummated against her will after she suffered a horrific beating. After three months it was decided she should live under lock and key back in England until she turned 16.

It is important to sift out the various elements and to try to understand what part Islam played in the arrangement. Her parents were clearly Muslims, the man who contracted the marriage (there is no account of his age) was also a Muslim. Pakistan, the cultural  home to them all (although the bride and her family lived in England) had been Muslim for well over a thousand years.

Sadly, when she tried one avenue of escape, she was propelled right back into her old life:

Samina breaks down and sobs: “I was so upset, I thought everyone had abandoned me.” Contemplating suicide, she started writing a text of apology to her daughter. She said: “Then I thought, how could I? She needed me — I couldn’t leave her.”

Samina found herself outside a church where she knew the priest. She said: “I was so disheartened I wanted to abandon everything I had been taught in childhood. “I thought the best thing I could do was to convert. Maybe being a Christian would give me peace.”

But the priest told her Islam had not let her down — people had. He contacted a Muslim woman who gave Samina a bed for the night and a shoulder to cry on.

This is the crux of the matter: who defines Islam? Nice people can say that the unpleasant parts are unjustified and that they must be purged from the faith. But who has the authority to do that? Faithful Muslims are entirely correct: if Mohammed is the penultimate prophet of Allah (the one true god) and the model for Muslims, then no one can tinker with the "deposit of faith."

It is an all or nothing equation, just as in Christianity. Either Muhammed is the model (and child marriage is completely licit) or Jesus Christ is the model (and marriage has an entirely different meaning). Modernism is just as wrong for Islam as it is for Christianity. If God spoke, then man must comply, if God didn't speak, than no one needs to comply -- and it's abominable to try to recreate a more palatable religion in "his" name.

Muslim feminists have worked hard to say that Islam is the one true religion but that its cultural accretions must be changed. What they cannot explain is how the culture of Muhammed was incorporated into the faith from its very inception and codified through shari'a law as the most perfect expression of Islam. Just as you cannot have Christianity without Jesus, you cannot have Islam without Muhammed. Modernists in both case try to dismiss the lives lived by those two as "victims of their own times and culture," and subsequently work to "sanitise" each religion of the parts they don't like.

Christians take Christ at his word; Muslims take Mohammed at his word. The bottom line is: Which word is true, and which faith honours the true dignity and vocation of woman?

The faith of Asia Bibi

While political events swirl about her, Asia Bibi, imprisoned in Pakistan since 2009 on blasphemy charges, awaits her trial that is still two years down the road. This dedicated Christian woman spends her days praying in a stifling, mosquito-infested cell. An interview has been posted on-line with the author of a book whose English edition will be released this fall. Anne-Isabelle Tollet has spent time with Asia's family, and her book tells the story of this devout mother-of-five whose trouble began when she tried to drink water from a bucket shared by her Muslim friends.

She spends the day praying in her bed. And she waits every week for Tuesday to arrive, when her husband goes to the prison to see her. Otherwise she kills time reminiscing, thinking about her children and praying.

A petition signed by 50 UN NGO's can be found here. Although she is alone in her cell, she is not alone in her predicament -- in fact another Christian woman has just been sent to jail on similar charges. As that news account reminds us, freeing the prisoner is not the end of the ordeal, for many are killed by "vigilantes" upon their release.

Unfortunately, Christian minorities don't have much hope when the Muslims themselves treat their own children like this. Fundamental human dignity and a sacramental view of marriage are entirely missing from such cultures.

Shedding a spotlight on a crime

In the United States, there are a variety of charities and commemorations chosen each month, such as Black History Month (February) and National Fire Prevention Month (October). Many reveal difficult topics that must be addressed, such as bullying and brain injuries and domestic violence, but none is as startling as the escalating problem in Kyrgystan:  Bride Kidnapping Prevention Month. There are at least 15,000 women snatched each year -- resulting in both mandatory marriage to the kidnapper (since she was with a stranger, and thus the situation requires normalisation) and a horrific divorce rate (at least half of the marriages break down -- which leads to some curious speculation about those that endure...)

The tradition began as a way of avoiding paying bride money or bypassing parental disapproval in the country which was largely nomadic until late in the Soviet era.

But men are now snatching women they don't know without their consent for abusive marriages that often end in divorce.

Once a woman has been kidnapped, her family is forced to agree to her marriage because she is compromised by her absence from home with a stranger.

"Bride kidnapping is a tradition of the Kyrgyz people, but these crimes often force women to commit suicide," Otunbayeva said at an event to mark the work of the prosecutor's office.

To date, not one man has ever been prosecuted, despite the fact that the activity is illegal. The hope that women will be free to choose a husband is a noble one, but if the current sentence of 3 years has never been applied, raising it to 10 years makes one dubious of their ability to really enforce it.  The entrenched tradition and Muslim accomodation of the practice make it doubly difficult to fight, but bless this woman for trying.

Along similar lines, Pakistan has moved to criminalise an equally abhorent practice, the offer of a female family member to placate an enemy. It's called Sawra:

A word about how Sawra works: when someone is killed in a blood feud between tribes, the guilty party can make amends by giving his sister or daughter to the victim's family. The "peace token" is forcibly married to one of the victim's male relatives and usually will be treated as an object of recrimination and bitterness by her new family, which will work her like a slave.

This practice is also long-enshrined in tradition, and underscores the status of women as chattel to be bartered, stolen or bought. In the words of Guenivere of Camelot, who approached her own marriage with frustration: " I won't be bid and bargained for like beads in a bazaar!" Unfortunately, virtue lies in submission, not in standing up for justice:

As Sima Munir, a leader of the Awrat Foundation, a women's NGO working in Pakistan, tells Radio Mashaal, bartered brides face enormous social pressure to submit to their fate.

 

"Sawra is an inhuman tradition where girls are treated as animals after [forced] marriage," Munir says. "But whenever a woman asks for help against all this cruelty, the society does not regard her well for demanding her rights. The women who tolerate this cruelty are considered noble instead."

We can only pray that the rays of authentic dignity and justice for women trickle into these dark corners of the earth.

Appeal to the Imams of Lahore

Nothing other than being Christian in a Muslim country, it seems:

Lahore (AsiaNews) – The rape of Christian women in Punjab has become a "common practice" an "outrageous" phenomenon compounded by the fact that "the police protect the guilty" and not the victims. This is the bitter synopsis of Fr Jill John, of the Diocese of Lahore on the last recorded case of sexual violence against a Christian mother. The family calls for justice, but is struggling against a society in which the defenders of the law support the rapists. Even human rights groups like Masihi Life for All Foundation have intervened on the matter, asking government authorities to target the perpetrators of crimes and punish the corrupt and conniving police officers.

Arifa Mushtaq (name changed for security reasons - ed) 32, mother of five was abducted and raped by three Muslims . Her husband Muashtaq Masih a worker at the Kasur sanitation department, in a devastated condition said, "Arifa use to work in a garment factory, on the y evening of 15 September she was coming home from work, she got off the bus, two local Muslims grabbed her from the back. Another armed accomplice came and put a gun on her head."

The woman began to scream ...and the men took Arifa by force to a house and, one by one, they raped her. The family is in shock and even their attempt to report the rape has added insult to injury: the Muslims have threatened her husband, warning him to withdraw the lawsuit. Otherwise, his children will have to go through what his wife has gone through. The police has also protected the perpetrators, putting pressure on Muashtaq Masih.

Fr. Jill John confirms that "the police helps the guilty, with omissions and gaps in the compilation of complaints to favor their freedom." The family of the raped woman, added the priest, are now living in fear while criminals are free to roam the streets of the town. "How much longer - he asks – will we see the children of God suffer? And when will Mushtaq Masih's family get justice?

In order for Islam not to be considered a factor in this crime, the local Muslim must denounce the assailants and the police, stand with the family and remind their flock that such behaviour is reprehensible. If this is done, it will build a bridge between Muslims and Christians and prove that such aggression is not compatible with the Islamic faith. Without such a statement, Christians are left with the impression that such behaviour is acceptible.

Kindly note that Muslims all over the world speak out against negative stereotypes being spread about Islam. It's unfortunate the incidents like this add to the difficulties. Any official statement would be welcome, and of course a joint pursuit of justice would speak volumes. I'm sure the necessary platforms are available.

What it means to be free

Fides News Service provides details of a disturbing story that poses serious questions:

Islamabad (Agenzia Fides) - Another case of a Pakistani Christian girl kidnapped and forced to convert to Islam was reported to Fides by the Pakistani Christians Association in Italy. Alfred Arifa is a 27-year old Catholic girl, from Nawa Killi, Quetta, who was kidnapped by a Muslim man, Amjad, in May 2009. The man was helped by two accomplices to coordinate the pre-planned kidnapping.

The kidnapping took place after she was drugged at a friend's house and taken by the man who now claims to be her husband.

Amjad told her that she had converted to Islam and had married him, showing her a fake marriage certificate. Arifa denied that she had converted to Islam, much less to have married him, since she was unconsciousness. To overcome the resistance on behalf of the girl, Amjad subjected her to mental and physical torture. Arifa was constantly drugged, severly beaten and locked in the house for two years. Arifa attempted to escape several times.

The night before August 1, Amjad had beaten Arifa severly, causing other internal injuries. On August 1, she found for the first time in two years the front door of the house unlocked. Although seriously injured, she didn't miss the chance and escaped from the house. She took a rickshaw and went to the Civil Hospital, where she was given primary treatment. She then went to her brother Adnan.

Now Arifa and her family are on the run to save their lives since they have received death threats from Amjad. Amjad says that Arifa is a Muslim and his wife. For this reason she cannot run away from home, otherwise she will be killed along with her family. On the other hand Arifa states: "I am a Christian and have always remained steadfast in my Christian faith and continued to pray to Jesus Christ and the Blessed Virgin Mary in my heart for liberation during these two years of imprisonment." 

Two years in captivity, and just now she has found her way out. We pray that Our Lady's mantle cover and protect this poor family, which has been subject to such an injustice. Furthermore, we ask:

• How can a marriage have taken place without the consent of the bride?
• How can a conversion have taken place without a conscious assent of the believer?
• Why would a man want to control another person with violence and coercion?
• What sort of culture or religion believes that marriage can be established in this way?

From the Catechism of the Catholic Church:

The parties to a marriage covenant are a baptized man and woman, free to contract marriage, who freely express their consent; "to be free" means:

• not being under constraint;
• not impeded by any natural or ecclesiastical law.

The Church holds the exchange of consent between the spouses to be the indispensable element that "makes the marriage." If consent is lacking there is no marriage.

The consent consists in a "human act by which the partners mutually give themselves to each other": "I take you to be my wife" - "I take you to be my husband." This consent that binds the spouses to each other finds its fulfillment in the two "becoming one flesh."

The consent must be an act of the will of each of the contracting parties, free of coercion or grave external fear. No human power can substitute for this consent. If this freedom is lacking the marriage is invalid (paragraphs 1625-1628).

Culture or faith?

Honour killings are all too common in the news, even in Europe and North America. There are a few different human elements that feed into it: the need to maintain the respect of one's peers, the pride of being thought to have catechised one's children well, the revulsion for sin, and the responsibility elders feel for the younger menbers of their family or clan. Where different faiths part is in the response one has to the sins of others. Consider the possibilities:

• One can see these sins as a tragedy to be born, since we're all guilty;
• One can see them as humiliating and a cause for others to judge us;
• One can see sin as the natural consequence of free will in a fallen world;
• One might consider them primarily as an insult to God, who will be angry;
• One might consider them a means of grieving God, who wants us to choose the good;
• One might think that sins will bear the seeds of destruction, harming the sinner;
• One might see the bad example that needs to be eliminated to minimise harm;
• One might trust in the justice of God to punish the sinner;
• One might trust in the mercy of God to be patient with the sinner;
• One may respond to sin with prayer for conversion;
• One may respond to sin by fraternal correction;
• One may feel that God wants vengeance now and calls us to act.

One father felt strongly that his duty was to eliminate the bad example given by his daughters by eliminating his daughters. All six of them--though he believed that only two had transgressed the cultural/religious norm. (And furthermore, something about his world view/religious understanding allowed him to feel no remorse afterwards.)

Mubashir shot the girls after their brother said two of them were in a relationship. He told police officials that he had killed his daughters because they were both “without honour,” The man said his daughters Sameena, 14, and Razia, 16, were in a relationship with college boys from the neighbourhood and the sisters had helped each other. “I should have been told immediately but the girls sided with each other. They were both corrupt,” Mubashir told Tandlianwala Police Inspector Javed Sial.

Some Muslims say actions like these are entirely justified--in fact, if the father had not acted, he would be complicit in their sins. Other Muslims believe this is a cultural artifact not connected to Islam.

To be sure, Christians have built cultures on the solid bedrock of shunning and shaming, but whether or not sinful behaviour should be treated by ostracism or incivilities, I don't know of any that considered "the wages of sin to be death" in such a literal way. Christians leave that judgement for the afterlife.

Who will speak for the defenseless?

Here is distressing news from Pakistan:

At a morgue in Pakistan's largest city, five linen pouches -- each the size of a loaf of bread -- line the shelf of a walk-in freezer. Wrapped inside each small sack is the corpse of an infant. The babies are victims of what one relief agency calls Pakistan's worst unfolding tragedy: the killing and dumping of newborns.

"Sometimes they hang them, and sometimes they kill by the knife, and sometimes we find bodies which have been burned," said Anwar Kazmi, a manager at Edhi Foundation, Pakistan's largest privately run social service and relief agency.

Records at Edhi Foundation show that more than 1,200 newborns were killed and dumped in Pakistan last year, an increase of about 200 from the previous year. Families view many of these children as illegitimate in a culture that condemns those born outside of marriage.

In the US, we abort a little under a million babies annually. While years ago it was done out of shame about illegitimacy, that shame has since disappeared. Now the babies are usually killed either because they are inconvenient or have medical defects.

As horrifying as the Pakistani account it -- and we must admit that it's because of the sheer visible violence that cannot be hidden -- it differs from our domestic situation only in that our babies are slightly younger and can be disposed of more discreetly. Let it be remembered that the Catholic Church has always stood by the humanity of the unborn, and fearlessly, unwaveringly defended their right to life.

God forgive us for our murderous sins -- and may those who claim to honour God see Him in each of these little ones, who have done nothing wrong.