Christian girl Saba Shafiq released after 2 months of captivity
"Saba Shafiq", a 12-year-old Christian girl, was released after being held captive by a Muslim for 2 months.
Saba Shafiq, a 12-year-old Christian girl living in Lahore, Punjab province, Pakistan, was kidnapped on January 5, 2025, by her Muslim neighbor, 35-year-old Muhammad Ali, in front of her house. After kidnapping Saba, he forced her to convert to Islam and marry her.
Saba was first taken by Muhammad Ali to the city of Sialkot in Punjab, where he obtained a fake conversion and marriage certificate for her, and then transferred her to the city of Benazirabad. On Wednesday, March 5, Lahore police, with the help of Sindh police, raided a house in a village in the same city, found Saba there, and arrested Muhammad Ali. The police transferred Saba to Lahore two days later.
Saba is a Catholic Christian. In her statement about her kidnapping by Muhammad Ali, she said: "Ali forced me to record a video and say that I had converted to Islam and married him of my own free will. I also had to say that I was 18 years old and that my parents should not take any action against us."
According to the Pakistan Social Justice Center, the number of recorded cases of abduction and forced conversion in 2023 has reached 136, the highest annual figure so far. Of these, 26 Christian girls were reported in Punjab province and 110 Hindu girls in Sindh province. According to the Pakistan Social Justice Center, most of these abductions took place in Sindh province, and 77 percent of the women abducted in this province were under the age of 18.
The global Christian watchdog organization Open Doors ranked Pakistan as the most dangerous place for Christians to live in 2025, ranking it eighth.
Human rights defenders also wrote about the kidnapping of Christian girls in Pakistan: "These girls are only 10 years old and are forcibly converted to Islam and raped under the guise of Islamic marriage. They are then pressured to record false statements in favor of the kidnappers. Judges also consistently ignore documentary evidence of the children's age and hand them over to the kidnappers as legal wives."
The news of Saba's release comes at a time when many of these little girls are being kidnapped and raped by extremist Islamists, but no news of these kidnappings, rapes, and forced marriages has been reported and remains a mystery.
