ECLJ Assists Pakistani Christian Couple on the Run After Conversion From Islam

The Pakistan office of the European Centre for Law and Justice (ECLJ) is helping a Christian couple hiding to save their lives. A Muslim woman converted to Christianity and married a Christian man against the will of her family and against Shariah law.
 
Both of them worked in the medical profession and worked at a hospital where they met and developed their relationship. In 2008, after one year of continuous teaching of the Gospel by her boyfriend, the woman told her family that she wanted to convert to Christianity and marry a Christian man. Her mother told the woman’s paternal uncle who took action opposing that decision.  He prevented her from going to her job and forced her to stay at home. The family then wanted her to marry her cousin, but she refused. To avoid the forced marriage with her Muslim cousin, she eloped and married her Christian boyfriend.
 
The Christian man told us that he shared the Christian faith with his then-girlfriend and they decided to get married.  The problem:  such action is unacceptable in Pakistan and incurred the wrath of the woman's family which filed a criminal complaint with the police alleging that the Christian man had abducted their daughter. The woman appeared in court and testified that she was not abducted but married of her own free will. The court dismissed her family’s false complaint that they had filed against her husband.
 
For a few days, the man’s family also had to flee their home because of threats they received from the woman’s family. Muslim police officials and the woman’s family asked the man’s family to divulge the whereabouts of the couple, who were in hiding for their physical safety. The man's family refused to release the couple's location.  That triggered more threats from the woman's family and police - telling the man's family that they will “molest their women in public” if they would not tell them where the couple was hiding.
 
The Christian family came out of hiding only after the court disposed of the case.
 
The couple contacted the ECLJ office in Pakistan and told us that they were Christians and wanted to change their legal status to Christian. We are providing them necessary assistance so that they can live in safety in another part of the country.