A court in Pakistan has handed custody of a 16-year-old Christian girl to an unrelated Muslim woman after the minor was recovered from a Muslim accused of abducting, forcibly converting and marrying her, her family’s attorney said.
The ruling came despite an earlier judicial finding that the minor had been coerced into making statements supporting the suspected kidnapper, said attorney Hanif Hameed.
Hameed said that Mehnaz Nadeem, a ninth-grade student and daughter of Nadeem Masih from Chak No. 134/16L in Mian Channu, Khanewal District, Punjab Province, was abducted from her home on May 15. The alleged kidnapper, Ansar Syed, is a resident of Muzaffargarh in southern Punjab, he said.
Masih, a mason, initially registered a First Information Report (FIR) at Mian Channu Saddar Police Station against two suspects under Sections 365-B (abduction) and 376(iii) (rape of a minor) of the Pakistan Penal Code, Hameed said.
During the investigation, police examined the call detail records of Mehnaz’s mobile phone and found that she had been communicating with Syed, he added.
“Technical data from the victim’s phone indicated that she was in Sialkot,” Hameed told Christian Daily International-Morning Star News. “Acting on this information, a police team raided a hotel in the city on May 29 and recovered Mehnaz along with Syed.”
A medical examination conducted after her recovery found evidence of sexual abuse, according to Hameed. Investigators also concluded that Syed had allegedly groomed the minor by promising marriage before abducting her.
When Mehnaz appeared before Judicial Magistrate Zafar Iqbal on June 4 to record her statement under Section 164 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, she claimed that she had willingly converted to Islam and married Syed. Hameed said such statements are commonly made by minor victims under coercion or intimidation.
The attorney argued that, as a minor, Mehnaz was legally incapable of giving valid consent to marriage or religious conversion. The magistrate accepted those arguments, agreeing with the lawyer’s submission that the case fell within the ambit of the Punjab Anti-Rape Act, 2021, the Punjab Destitute and Neglected Children Act, 2004, and the Punjab Child Marriage Restraint Act, 2026.
Hameed said the magistrate further concluded that Mehnaz’s statement had been procured under coercion, ordered police to register a criminal case regarding the false statement, remanded Syed to judicial custody, and directed that she be placed in a government-run shelter home pending further proceedings.
Several days later, Mehnaz’s father obtained permission to meet his daughter at the shelter home.
“During that meeting, the child realized that she had been exploited by the accused and agreed to return to her family,” Hameed said. “Her parents were overjoyed and immediately began preparing an application seeking her custody.”
The case, however, took an unexpected turn. On June 23, Mehnaz submitted an application through the shelter home’s superintendent requesting her release. When she appeared before another judicial magistrate, Muhammad Sohail Anjum, she reversed her position, claiming she feared returning to her family and asking the court to allow her to leave with a person she trusted.
“I strongly opposed the request, arguing that a minor child could not legally be entrusted to an unrelated person instead of her natural guardians,” Hameed said. “Despite these objections, the magistrate did not accept our arguments.”
The following day, Anjum ordered that Mehnaz be released into the custody of a Muslim woman identified as Shazia Mai, who had no familial or legal relationship with her, the lawyer said.
Hameed described the order as contrary to the Guardian and Wards Act, 1890.
“Under the law, the court may restore custody to the child’s natural guardians, entrust the child to a suitable relative, or continue to exercise protective jurisdiction if that best serves the child’s welfare,” he said. “There is no legal basis for handing over a minor to an unrelated individual.”
He also questioned the apparent inconsistency between the court’s decisions.
“It is incomprehensible that the court allowed a child to leave with an unknown person after another magistrate had already determined that she had been induced to make false statements and had placed her under the court’s protective custody,” Hameed said.
The family plans to challenge the custody order before the Lahore High Court, he said.
“We will move the high court against this illegal order because the child’s safety and welfare remain at serious risk.”
The disputed custody order comes just weeks after Punjab enacted sweeping reforms to its child marriage laws. The Punjab Child Marriage Restraint Act, 2026, which came into force on May 11, raises the minimum legal age of marriage to 18 for both males and females, bringing the province into line with Sindh, Balochistan and the Islamabad Capital Territory. Khyber Pakhtunkhwa remains the only province without equivalent legislation.
The law replaces provisions of the Child Marriage Restraint Act of 1929, which had allowed girls to marry at 16 and boys at 18. Lawmakers also adopted an amendment requiring authorities to treat the “best interests of the child” as a primary consideration in all proceedings under the law, including investigations, bail hearings, sentencing and custody decisions.
The amendment, introduced by Christian lawmaker Ejaz Alam Augustine with cross-party support, further provides that a child involved in a marriage cannot be treated as an offender and that the purported consent of a minor, particularly in cases involving coercion or abduction, cannot be considered determinative in decisions relating to custody or protection.
Cases involving the abduction, forced conversion and forced marriage of underage girls from Pakistan’s religious minority communities have increasingly drawn international attention. On July 9, the European Parliament adopted a resolution highlighting the case of 13-year-old Christian girl Maria Shahbaz and calling on Pakistan to establish a national mechanism to receive complaints from families of abducted or forcibly converted girls from religious minorities.
The resolution described Maria’s case as emblematic of broader human rights concerns in the country and urged Pakistan to fully implement its national framework to end child marriage, strengthen protections for religious minorities, ensure that all cases involving minors or allegations of coercion are investigated independently and transparently, prosecute those responsible, strengthen the judicial framework, and enable abducted girls to return safely to their families.
Maria was abducted from her family in July 2025 by 30-year-old Shehryar Ahmad, who allegedly forced her to convert to Islam and marry him. Her family petitioned Pakistan’s Federal Constitutional Court for her return, but on Feb. 3 the court upheld the marriage and returned custody of the child to Ahmad.
