Pakistani Christian Mother's Children Abducted by Muslim Ex-Husband
by Allie Martin
December 6, 2004
(AgapePress) - A ministry that serves the persecuted Church is encouraging Christians in the free world to write letters to a Pakistani believer whose children were recently kidnapped by their Muslim father.Open Doors ministry officials report that the five-year-old son and three-year-old daughter of Maria Samar John were kidnapped from a Lahore courtyard in September by their father, a follower of Islam. The children were taken after they had begun a two-hour supervised visitation session with their non-custodial parent. The children's mother and father were divorced last year.
Jerry Dykstra with Open Doors says the Pakistani justice system is not very favorable to Christians, and therefore, John, as a believer, is at a decided disadvantage in that society. "Christians in Pakistan are very marginalized," he explains. "They don't have a lot of rights. There have been attacks on Christian churches, and there have been arrests. Christians have little voice."
Dykstra says a believer in Pakistan cannot only expect little assistance from the authorities, but may also find himself or herself the victim of persecution and injustice. "Christians have been sentenced to many years in jail for minor instances," he says, "and, of course, that's because it's an Islamic Republic. Pakistan has a 90 percent Muslim population and only two percent Christians at most."
The ministry representative says John was abducted and forced to marry her husband when she was 17, and she had two children before she was able to escape her captors several years ago. He adds that, before she got away, John had been held as a virtual slave and beaten by both her husband and her mother-in-law for refusing to say Muslim prayers.
Now the Christian mother is praying for the safe return of her kidnapped children. Although the Pakistani authorities have put out an arrest warrant for the woman's former husband, Dykstra says the government officials have a double standard when it comes to protecting the rights of Christians.
Still, the Open Doors spokesman believes some hope remains. "We find that miracles often happen," he says, "especially when we pray. And so we just feel that the Lord is going to do a miracle in this case and that the mother will be reunited with her two little children."
According to the U.S. State Department's recently released annual report on religious freedom in Pakistan, instances of both excessive police force and "police inaction" have been documented in cases involving Christians. These facts have been faulted for the Pakistani government's repeated failure to protect members of religious minorities.
