LAHORE, Pakistan — Christian rights activists and legal experts revealed at a press conference in Lahore that the documents used to validate the forced marriage of 13-year-old Maria Shahbaz to her 30-year-old abductor, Muhammad Shehryar, were extensively forged, directly challenging a ruling by Pakistan’s Federal Constitutional Court that upheld the union.
The case carries direct implications for Western governments that fund rule-of-law programs in Pakistan and for the estimated 1,000 young girls — many of them Christians — kidnapped each year in the country and forced to convert to Islam and marry older Muslim men. Legal experts said “this case highlights deep systemic flaws and loopholes within Pakistan’s judiciary and law enforcement,” and that “a perpetrator dared to present completely forged documents to one of the highest constitutional courts in the country and win shows how insulated criminals feel from the law.”
The Federal Constitutional Court ruled in March that the marriage between Shehryar and Shahbaz “was valid under both Pakistani law and Islamic law.” The court based its decision on the observation that Maria “looked older than her actual age” and noted that under Islamic law, “a Muslim man is permitted to marry women from the ‘Ahl-e-Kitab’ (People of the Book).” The court dismissed the family’s petition to recover their daughter.
Activists at the June 6 press conference laid out three categories of forgery. First, the Nikahnama — the marriage certificate — “lacked Maria’s signature/thumbprint and her national identity card number.” Second, “the Muslim cleric listed as the officiant on the marriage certificate has formally denied having conducted or witnessed the marriage.” Third, “Maria’s statement, recorded before the magistrate, was written in English. However, Maria speaks only Punjabi,” raising questions about whether the girl understood or even produced the statement attributed to her. Rights activists and legal experts said “the key documents presented to the court were completely fabricated.”
Maria’s father, Shahbaz Masih, filed a review petition on April 30 to challenge the court’s verdict. The pattern his family faces is common across Pakistan: when parents attempt to reclaim a kidnapped daughter in court, they are often unable to provide a birth certificate to prove she is underage, and judges grant custody to the abductor.
The review petition before the Federal Constitutional Court is pending, with no hearing date yet announced. Activists and lawyers in Lahore have called for a full forensic review of the fraudulent documents before the court takes up the case again.