Life as a Christian Minority in Pakistan

One of the 100 families freed from bonded labor in Pakistan’s brick kilns in the most recent phase of Barnabas Aid’s loan clearance project.

Barnabas Aid : Christians make up between 2 and 3% of the population of Pakistan. Conditions for our Pakistani brothers and sisters show little sign of improving as they strive to live for Christ in the vast Muslim-majority nation. In this article we outline four major challenges Christians in Pakistan face, and how Barnabas Aid is responding to their needs.

The “Blasphemy” Law in Pakistan

Many Christians and other religious minorities, as well as Muslims, have fallen foul of Pakistan’s notorious “blasphemy” laws. A mandatory death sentence is imposed for those convicted under Section 295-C of the Pakistan Penal Code, which refers to defiling the name of Muhammad, the prophet of Islam (although this sentence has never yet been carried out). In January 2023, “blasphemy” laws were even tightened with the punishment for insulting the family of Muhammad increased from 3 to 10 years in prison.

The “blasphemy” laws are often used to make false accusations to settle personal grudges. Christians are particularly vulnerable, as merely expressing some of their beliefs can be construed as “blasphemy” and the lower courts usually favor the testimony of Muslims, in accordance with sharia (Islamic law). Such accusations can often lead to mob violence. In August 2023, the alleged discovery of desecrated pages of the Quran stirred up a mob to rampage through the Christian area of Jaranwala city. They burned at least 24 church buildings and several dozen smaller chapels, as well as attacking the homes of more than 100 believers.

Higher courts sometimes overturn lower courts’ convictions. Brothers Umar (Rocky) and Umair (Raja) Saleem, both Christians, were acquitted in February 2024 of “blasphemy” charges that sparked the Jaranwala riots after it emerged that they had been falsely implicated by two Muslim men with a grudge against them. Those accused of “blasphemy” often suffer extra-judicial violence instead – for example, a Christian man in his 70’s was beaten and stoned by a mob of extremists in Sargodha city in May 2024, following unsubstantiated allegations that he had desecrated a Quran, and he later died of his injuries.

Abductions and Forced Conversions Target Christian Women and Girls

Christian girls and young women are vulnerable to being abducted by Muslim men and forced to marry their captors and convert to Islam. These “conversions” are often secured under a threat of violence to the victims and their families, but the authorities rarely intervene.

Among numerous cases of violence against women, in September 2023 the Islamabad Sessions Court sentenced Muhammad Shahzad to 25 years’ imprisonment (considered a life term under the Pakistan Penal Code) for the murder of Sonia Bibi. Sonia died in November 2020 after being shot by Shahzad on an Islamabad street for refusing his persistent marriage proposal.

Christian women and girls in Pakistan are vulnerable to being abducted, then forced to convert to Islam and marry Muslim men. 

Sunita Munawar, 19, was hospitalized with severe burns after a Muslim man, Kamran Allah Bux, threw acid on her while she was getting off a bus in Karachi in February 2023. Bux admitted his crime, saying that he threw acid at Sunita for rejecting his proposal that she convert to Islam and marry him. Sunita’s family’s previous complaints to police about Bux’s unwanted advances had been ignored.

Read it all here....