The Federal Constitutional Court of Pakistan will review a previous ruling that allowed a 13-year-old Christian girl, who was forced into child marriage and religious conversion, to stay with her abductor.
“One year ago in July 2025, Maria [Shahbaz] was abducted. She was forced into a marriage with a 30-year-old man. She was forcibly converted and she remains with the abductor today,” Kelsey Zorzi, director of advocacy for Global Religious Freedom at Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) International said in an interview with “EWTN News Nightly” anchor Veronica Dudo.
Shahbaz has been seeking justice in the Pakistani court since it placed her in the custody of Shehryar Ahmad –— the man who abducted her from her family. The Christian girl was married off to Ahmad and forcibly converted to Islam.
The court previously found that she could remain with her abductor after “they did not verify her age according to her birth certificate,” Zorzi explained. “Instead, they looked at her and said, ‘She doesnʼt look 13. She looks older.’ And they sent her home with the abductor.”
“The Christian community is outraged by the courtʼs latest decision, because what it signals to future abductors is that they can find young girls, they can forcibly marry them, they can forcibly convert them to Islam, and then they can tell the judge that their birth certificates are erroneous, and they can tell them that these girls are any age that they appear to be physically,” she said.
On July 16, “the Federal Constitutional Court, which is the highest court in Pakistan that hears these cases, actually decided to hear a review of their decision from March of this year,” Zorzi said.
The court “is willing to reevaluate that decision,” she said. “On Friday, July 24, they will have the first hearing to reevaluate this.”
The court’s decision follows a resolution adopted by the European Parliament on July 9 that highlighted Shahbaz’s case and detailed human rights violations in Sudan, Nigeria, and Pakistan. It called for Shahbaz’s return to her family and condemned the broader pattern of child abductions and forced marriages in Pakistan.
In the resolution members of Parliament said they “call for the protection of religious minorities and urge Pakistan’s government to ensure that all cases involving minors or allegations of coercion are subject to transparent and independent investigations.”
“The perpetrators must be prosecuted and Pakistan’s judicial framework strengthened … and abducted girls must be able to return safely,” the resolution said.
Shahbaz’s case is ‘not an isolated event’
Shahbaz’s case is not an isolated case, and child marriage and forced conversion among young girls “is a widespread problem in Pakistan and beyond,” Zorzi said.
According to UNICEF, 100 million girls worldwide are at risk of child marriage this decade. The issue escalated during the COVID-19 pandemic due to rising poverty and isolation, and lack of education.
“In Pakistan alone, weʼre seeing over 1,000 minority girls being forcibly married and forcibly converted into Islam every single year,” Zorzi said. “So Mariaʼs case is not an isolated event. Itʼs part of a systemic problem that weʼre seeing in this country.”
ADF International believes Shahbaz’s case “is a precedent-setting case,” Zorzi said. “We think it has so much potential to actually stop this problem going forward. So weʼre very hopeful and weʼre very thankful that the court is willing to reconsider it next week.”
“Throughout Pakistan, the pattern of abductions, forced conversions, and coerced marriages of underage girls to much older men is alarming,” Tehmina Arora, director of Advocacy for Asia at ADF International, said in a July 9 press release.
“Hundreds of girls each year find themselves victims of these sham marriages, losing their personal freedoms and facing exploitation and abuse,” Arora said.
“The court must now do what is right by granting her freedom and establishing a precedent that will protect vulnerable young girls from these horrific acts,” she said.
