The Global Hindu Temple Network (GHTN) in America has recently released a report highlighting that two major global institutions — the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) — have violated their own stated guidelines when it comes to dealing with Pakistan. According to the report, minor girls and women from Pakistan’s minority communities, particularly Hindus, Christians, and Sikhs, continue to face systemic abduction, coerced religious conversion, and forced marriage.

UN Special Rapporteurs, international NGOs, and some local Pakistani groups consistently estimate that the actual number of gender violence cases against minority girls would be around 1,000 cases per year — a figure many observers still consider underreported due to systemic barriers to filing complaints, fear of retaliation, and police inaction.

High-profile cases, such as that of Mehak Kumari, 15-year-old Hindu girl, who faced threats of beheading from clerics after reporting a coerced conversion, illustrate the severe risks minority girls and their families encounter, according to the GHTN report.

On December 29, 2023, the U.S. Secretary of State redesignated Pakistan as a “Country of Particular Concern" (CPC) under the International Religious Freedom Act, citing the country’s engagement in or tolerance of particularly severe violations of religious freedom. This designation underscores that the international community regards these abuses including widespread forced conversions, coerced marriages, and abductions of minority girls as not only systemic but severe.

The US Commission on........

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