Attacks on minority women in Pakistan spark calls to reopen Office of Religious Freedoms closed by Liberals

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There are new calls for the resurrection of the Office of Religious Freedoms, with advocates and opposition politicians saying its closure by the Trudeau Liberals has left Canada without a strong response against targeted abductions, rapes and forced conversions of young Christian and Hindu girls in Pakistan.

Opposition MPs say that the Office of Religious Freedoms created under the previous Conservative government monitored and addressed religious persecution and protected the freedom of religion around the world.

The office was shut down in 2016 and replaced with the new Office of Human Rights and Freedoms, which the Liberal government said would be more inclusive of all human rights abuses.

Conservative party deputy leader Candice Bergen said the atrocities in Pakistan require a stronger response from the Liberal government, which has largely overlooked these violations of religious freedom and minority rights.

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“The reports coming out of Pakistan of Christian and Hindu girls being abducted, raped, forced into marriages and coerced to convert from their faith are deeply concerning and need to be addressed,” she said in an emailed statement to National Post.

“I call upon the Prime Minister to re-establish the Office of Religious Freedoms and resolve to work with our allies to end these religious persecutions,” Bergen said.

Garnett Genuis, a Conservative MP, and the party’s international development and human rights critic, says the complex dynamics of religious persecution is often overlooked by Western governments because in their worlds religion is not as deeply rooted as it is in countries like Pakistan.

This past December, he said the former Office of Religious Freedom played a vital role by recognizing the linkages that exist between religion and violence against women and minority communities.

But a spokesperson for Global Affairs Canada says the Canadian government is working closely with Pakistan, and Canadian officials regularly raise concerns with Pakistani authorities on issues related to religious freedoms. “Canada is deeply concerned by the mistreatment of religious minorities in Pakistan. The right to freedom of religion or belief is among the human rights issues at the forefront of Canada’s foreign policy interests,” said Grantly Franklin.

Franklin added Canada “is committed to advancing gender equality and the empowerment of women and girls — a priority at the centre of Canada’s foreign policy and international assistance efforts.”

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The Office of Human Rights, Freedoms and Inclusion took part in the Ministerial to Advance Freedom of Religion or Belief, hosted virtually last November, where Rob Oliphant, the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Foreign Affairs, specifically raised the concern of  “violence targeting religious minorities, particularly Christians” in Pakistan, Franklin said.

But experts say more work needs to be done in Pakistan, and the issue is not a gender or female empowerment ssue, but a religious persecution issue. Targeted kidnappings, rapes, and forced conversion are merely symptoms of deeply-rooted religious intolerance and accepted violence.

Rev. Andrew Bennett, the former Ambassador of the Office of Religious Freedom, said Pakistan has a long-held persecution ideology towards its minority groups. “These ideas are amplified by the media, or by religious leaders, which are then taken up by people who do wicked things.”

He said some of his previous duties included working closely with the Pakistani government to make changes to its penal code, for example. “When the office was closed we lost that voice,” he said.

Some of the most well-known cases of religious intolerance come from Pakistan. Asia Bibi a Christian mother who spent nine years on death row in a Pakistani jail for accusations of blasphemy after an argument with co-workers, was granted asylum into Canada in 2018, where she still remains in hiding.

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Peter Bhatti of Mississauga, Ont., is the founder of International Christian Voice, a Canadian human rights organization. He said discussions about religious minorities in Pakistan were taking place while the Office of Religious Freedom was operating, but those conversations have since ended.

Bhatti’s brother, Shahbaz Bhatti, was Pakistan’s only Christian cabinet minister. Shahbaz was assassinated by an Islamic extremist in 2011 when he advocated for Bibi’s freedom. The creation of the Office of Religious Freedoms in Canada was inspired by his death.

A human rights organization reports that more than 1,000 Christian and Hindu girls are kidnapped each year in Pakistan. Young girls from the country’s religious minority communities, between the ages of 11-25, are raped, forced to covert to Islam, and into marriages with their abductors. Few manage to escape, and rarely do police investigate or make arrests.

Pakistan-based lawyer Sumera Shafique, who works with kidnaped victims’ families, said apostasy in Islam is punishable by death in Pakistan and is usually carried out by lynch mobs. Even if the girls are converted under duress, any signs they have returned to their faith can spark violent backlash. Pakistani law also prohibits non-Muslims legal guardianship over Muslim children. Once the girls are Islamic their parents lose all legal rights, she told National Post.

“Such acts are committed by extremists who are operating in an environment that breeds extremism, does little to discourage or punish extremism, and indeed, rewards these acts of violence, as perpetrators are even valorized by media and political leaders,” said Aaron Rhodes, president of the Forum for Religious Freedom-Europe, and author of The Debasement of Human Rights: How Politics Sabotage the Ideal of Freedom.

On Dec. 11, 2020, the former U.S Secretary of State re-designated Pakistan as a Country of Particular Concern for having engaged in or tolerated particularly severe violations of religious freedom.