Unsplash / Hamid Roshaan
A 16-year-old Christian girl in Pakistan escaped captivity last month after enduring more than two years of reported sexual abuse, forced conversion, and coercion under a Muslim family that kidnapped her when she was just 14, according to International Christian Concern (ICC).
ICC reported that Muskan Liaqat fled her captors’ home in the town of Muridke in Pakistan’s Sheikhupura District June 3, seizing a rare moment when her abuser left her unguarded.
Local Christians brought her to a safe house, and legal proceedings have begun against Muhammad Adnan and his father, Muhammad Arif — the men who allegedly abducted her at gunpoint in May 2023 and claimed she had converted to Islam and married Adnan.
Liaqat, a member of the Salvation Army Church, recounted repeated rape and beatings that led to a miscarriage after she became pregnant in 2024.
“I wanted to kill myself as it seemed the only way out of the agony that I was suffering every day,” she said, according to the release. “I would also question myself, ‘Would my family accept me even if I somehow manage to escape and return home? Would they believe me that I had not gone with Adnan willingly?’”
>> Report: Christian girls in Pakistan endure brutal attacks, forced marriage, religious coercion <<
ICC President Jeff King said Liaqat’s case reflects a broader crisis affecting Christian girls in Pakistan.
“Christian girls are regularly targeted, abducted, and forcibly ‘married,’ and converted to Islam, with little recourse,” he said. “Tragically, the Pakistani government rarely holds perpetrators accountable. Instead, local police often deepen the anguish by intimidating, threatening, or even physically assaulting Christian parents who fight to rescue their daughters.”
Liaqat’s parents had tried to report her abduction to local police in 2023, but authorities allegedly refused to file a case. When her family petitioned the court in 2024 to secure her release, Liaqat said her captors forced her to deny the abduction and claim she was staying with them willingly.
“This failure of justice is a stain on the conscience of any society that values human dignity,” King said. “We urgently call on Pakistan’s authorities to protect vulnerable Christian communities, prosecute those responsible, and reform a system that betrays its own people. The world must stand with these victims and demand change.”
Open Doors’ 2025 World Watch List ranks Pakistan as the eighth-most dangerous country in the world for Christians, citing unchecked religious violence and a legal system that enables persecution rather than preventing it.
>> ‘A dark age of intolerance’: Christian persecution soars in Pakistan <<
