A 20-year-old Christian woman from Pakistan's Punjab province, home to the country’s largest Christian population, was threatened with death by a Muslim suitor if she did not marry him within nine days, UCA News reported April 8.
Rehman Irfan, a young man from Village 6/11-L, approached Laiba Javaid on April 6 and handed her the following note: “Be ready to marry me on April 15, 2026, at the Lahore High Court. If you refuse, I will kill you.”
Javaid’s uncle, Imran Masih, filed a formal complaint at the local police station, which subsequently arrested Irfan. Masih said the arrest provided the family temporary relief, though they are still extremely concerned about the April 15 deadline.
“The threat has left the entire family in a state of terror. Our daughter’s life is in grave danger,” Masih said. He added that the threat was a danger to the whole Christian minority in their village.
Sister Sobia Tabasam of the Daughters of Saint Paul, a local religious, also decried the violation of Javaid’s safety, UCA News reported.
“It’s a total collapse of social and legal protection when our young women cannot walk in their own villages without receiving death threats,” the sister noted.
She added, “The Church stands with Laiba’s family, but we demand that the state fulfill its duty to protect its most vulnerable citizens from such predatory behavior.”
From 2021 to 2025, there were at least 515 reported cases of abduction and forced conversion of women, according to a study by the Center for Social Justice. Nearly seven in 10 of these cases were Hindu girls and women. The others were Christians. Half of the victims were ages 14–18, and one in five were younger than 14.
Anthony Naveed, the Christian deputy speaker of the Sindh Provincial Assembly, penned an April 6 letter to the federal law ministry urging it to enforce strict laws against abductions, forced conversions and marriages, and child marriages. He called on the federal law ministry to end “the culture of impunity” around forced marriage and conversion of young girls from minority communities, according to UCA News.
The current laws against child marriages, he wrote, are ineffective, and “often remain silent on the legal validity of the marriage contract itself.”