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According to the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), there are 51 Muslim-majority countries. Yet, none of them treat non-Muslim communities with respect and dignity. The brutality that Muslim regimes and societies inflict on non-Muslims is extreme — and children are often the target.
When it comes to discrimination against non-Muslim children, including Hindus and Christians, Pakistan is one of the most radical and alarming cases.
Minority children in Pakistan face systematic abuse and discrimination. This includes barriers to education, abductions, incidents of child “marriages,” child labor, discrimination in public services, and forced conversions to Islam.
A new report by Pakistan’s National Commission on the Rights of the Child (NCRC) highlights the severe challenges faced by children who belong to religious minority groups. It calls for immediate action by the government to curb the high levels of discrimination emanating from systemic bias, social exclusion, and institutional neglect.
The report, titled “Situation Analysis of Children from Minority Religions in Pakistan,” also raises the crucial issues of forced conversion, child marriages, and child labor faced by minority children:
“The worrying trend of systemic discrimination affects every part of the minority population’s daily life, especially their children. Minority children frequently face discrimination from classmates and educators in schools. They also have to deal with curricula that could reinforce negative preconceptions about their religion. Isolation, below-average academic achievement, and, in many cases, school dropout are the expected outcomes of such an educational setting.
Minority households’ financial situation presents an equally alarming image. Many individuals are caught up in cycles of bonded labor, especially in brick kilns and the agricultural sector, where entire families, including their children, work in cruel conditions.”
The introduction of a “Single National Curriculum” in Pakistani schools in 2020 denigrates religious minorities. It enforces the teaching of the Quran and subjects like Mathematics and Science in an Islamized manner. Many schoolbooks also incite hatred against religious minorities, including Christians.
In its review of Pakistan’s educational curriculum, the study noted the minorities’ concern about the absence of religious inclusion in the “Single National Curriculum”:
“Minority populations often express dissatisfaction with the compulsory study of Islamic religious education due to the absence of other options to examine their own perspectives. This not only infringes upon their religious freedom but also hinders their academic progress, since they are obligated to study a topic that may not align with their principles. Numerous minority students articulate apprehension over their scores on annual evaluations, as their performance in religious studies may adversely impact their total GPA. This intensifies feelings of alienation and reduces their prospects for academic achievement.”
NCRC Minorities Member from Sindh, Pirbhu Lal Satyani, stated:
“Children from religious minorities are among the most marginalized. They face stigma, stereotyping, and structural exclusion that obstruct their full development.”
Naming forced religious conversion and forced marriage of Christian and Hindu minor girls to older Muslim men as the most concerning issues, the report notes that there are few legal options available to the victims.
“Such practices persist despite existing legal protections because of institutional biases, public pressure, and the poor role of law enforcement agencies,” it said.
Christian girls (and to a lesser extent boys) are also frequent targets of physical and sexual abuse, as are children from the Hindu minority.
While all women in Pakistan are vulnerable to gender-based violence in Pakistan, women and girls from religious minorities face overt and violent forms of gender-specific religious persecution.
Abduction and sexual violence of religious minorities is endemic throughout the country. The Movement for Solidarity and Peace calculates that every year up to 1,000 Christian and Hindu children and young women are abducted by Muslim men. These figures are seen as a low estimate because many experience a fear of retaliation and a risk of social shame. This means that Christian and Hindu families are reluctant to report incidents of this kind.
Yet, the number of Hindu and Christian girls abducted, abused, and forcefully converted to Islam with the law’s consent is also growing. Minority women and girls as young as 7 (primarily from poor families and including girls with physical disabilities) are abducted and raped (including gang-raped) by Muslim men. They are forced to marry their abductor and are converted by force. Some are trafficked into slave labor and the sex trade. For example, a 10-year-old Christian girl from Faisalabad was kidnapped in 2024. Her parents feared she could be sold to sex traffickers, according to media reports.
In Pakistan, occupations that are deemed low, dirty, and degrading—such as cleaning sewers or working in brick kilns—are reserved for Christians (including children) by the authorities, as can be seen, for example, in job announcements.
Christians regardless of age are often referred to as “Chura,” a derogatory word meaning “filthy,” which is used for road sweepers or sewage cleaners.
Since its independence in 1947, Pakistan has been an Islamic state. It is within that context that non-Muslims experience increasing levels of persecution.
Open Doors, a human rights organization, has reported on the various ways Christian children are persecuted by the Muslim majority:
- It is becoming the norm in Pakistan to rape young Christian children, with reports revealing assaults against a three-year-old girl and an eight-year-old girl, the latter at the hands of her school principal (International Christian Concern, 31 July 2021).
- There are also reports of Christian boys being subject to sexual abuse. Experts indicate that instances of rape and murder of young boys are on the rise in Pakistan.
- Christians including children are also trapped in cycles of debt and bonded labor, such as in brick-kiln factories. This affects Christians of both genders, although it is a context in which female Christians may be additionally exposed to sexual violence.
- Discrimination at school (and elsewhere) is a daily experience for Christian schoolchildren. At school, children of Christian parents are often not allowed to use the same water fountain as their Muslim classmates to avoid “defiling” the drinking-water, and they are often bullied. Many Christian children are asked to clean the latrines or sweep the floor as Christians are commonly perceived as being sweepers.
- Christian children have been pressured into attending anti-Christian or majority religion (Islamic) teaching at any level of education.
- Christian children are given a counter narrative from the teachers and other Muslim students that they are infidels and inferiors, and they are following a false faith. They are often told that the Bible has been corrupted from its original wording. And there is only the Quran which has been preserved in its original language over the centuries.
- Christian women and girls are at risk of sexual violence in the public sphere, including in the workplace and in schools. This is part of a wider attitude towards Christian girls and women; Muslim men are more likely to think that Christian women and girls have loose morals and are easily available. Many are house-maids or cleaners and are targeted for sexual exploitation.
- Christian families usually worry about their men and boys being trapped in blasphemy allegations and try to keep a low profile. Exemplifying the dangers, murders of Christian men and boys and men are commonplace if they are seen to insult Islam.
- False imprisonment is one of the biggest areas (for men and boys) especially relating to false accusations of blasphemy/apostacy, in these instances entire families and communities are impacted. Due to fearing blasphemy accusations, parents even teach their children to be completely silent about their faith.
- Not least due to the prevailing pressure from society and the situation that Christian children find themselves in when attending school, it is hard to raise children according to the Christian faith and withstand the pressure exerted.
As is obvious in Pakistan, a country where 98 percent of the population is Muslim, the Islamic ideology eliminates the feelings of empathy and compassion from its most ardent followers. It destroys moral values and has nothing constructive or positive to offer to civilized societies. The West must finally acknowledge the cruelty of the Islamic Pakistani culture and stop enabling its barbaric regime.
