Barnabas Aid - International Headquarters River Street, Pewsey, Wilthire. Phone: +44 1672 565030 Latitude: 51 deg 23 min 18 sec N Longitude: 1 deg 45 min 48 sec W .
Home
News
Archives
Kidnap, forced conversion and marriage o...

Email:

Kidnap, forced conversion and marriage of Egyptian Christian women rising

To

Email address:
Separate multiple addresses with a comma (,). Maximum of 10

From

Your name:
Your email address:
Security test:
Please enter the numbers that appear here in the box below.
 refresh captcha
CAPTCHA Image
Security code:

Details provided here will never be used in any other context

Published: 15:00 GMT Daylight Time - Tuesday 24 July 2012

Kidnap, forced conversion and marriage of Egyptian Christian women rising

Country/Region: Egypt, Middle East and North Africa

A new report has found that the cases of Christian girls and women disappearing, being forcibly converted to Islam and married against their will in Egypt have escalated since the Arab Spring uprising.

forced-conversion-egypt-4x3.jpg

The report, Tell My Mother I Miss Her, released on 18 July, was co-authored by Nadia Ghaly, an Egyptian Christian human rights activist, and Michele Clark, a professor at George Washington University.

It found that the Christian community has “become more vulnerable to persecution on account of the upsurge of militant Islam following the overthrow of President Hosni Mubarak”, with women in particular at greater risk. The numbers of disappearances and abductions are rising, with fewer girls returning to their families; minors and mothers of young children are increasingly being targeted.

The title of the report was a direct quote from a victim made in a recorded phone conversation to her father after her abduction. “D” disappeared on 20 May 2011. Her mother reported the 19-year-old missing, and later that evening the police came to the family home and told them that D had married a Muslim man.

A month later, D managed to phone her father. Crying down the line, she asks him to tell her mother that she misses her before the teenager is interrupted by someone entering the room. The line goes dead, and when the father calls back, a man answers, saying:

She is unconscious now but let me tell you something, this girl is more important to me than anything else. I swear to God, if something happens to her, I will kill all of you and I will burn the church. You know that I can do that.

D has since phoned her father eight times, saying that she is abused and mistreated, and asking for help to escape. In desperation he told her to cut herself so that she would be taken to hospital, where her family might be able to see her. But a doctor was brought to the house, where she is imprisoned in a room, instead.

D’s case was one of 14 that human rights lawyer Stefanos Milad Stefanos brought before the Egyptian Ministry of the Interior in September 2011, requesting investigations, but there had been no follow-up by the time he met with the report’s authors.

Four lawyers reported over 550 cases asking for the restoration of Christian identity following disappearances, forced marriages and forced conversions over a five-year period, with cases escalating since 25 January 2011, when Arab Spring protests began.    

Tell My Mother I Miss Her follows a report written by the same authors in November 2009 called The Disappearance, Forced Conversions and Forced Marriages of Coptic Christian Women in Egypt. While that report comprehensively outlined the problem, cases are often disregarded by both the Egyptian authorities and the international community; detractors claim that the disappearances are “nothing more than petulant acts of young women seeking to leave oppressive home environments and that there is no criminal activity involved”.

The aim of the new report is to challenge the notion that the testimony of victims is made up of mere allegations, and calls for investigations and strong preventative measures.

Help us: Share this article

Email:

Kidnap, forced conversion and marriage of Egyptian Christian women rising

To

Email address:
Separate multiple addresses with a comma (,). Maximum of 10

From

Your name:
Your email address:
Security test:
Please enter the numbers that appear here in the box below.
 refresh captcha
CAPTCHA Image
Security code:

Details provided here will never be used in any other context

christian, persecution, charity, church, persecuted, sookhdeo, Islam

Other articles

Latest Emergency

/_images_files/content/article_files/Eritrea/201305/Eritrean-Christian-refugee-torture-wounds-4X3.jpg

Follow Barnabas

or

receive news & appeal emails as they are published

From Twitter

From Twitter_icon
Read more...

Daily prayer

Daily prayer_icon

  • “It’s good to be in the hands of El Shaddai.” These were the last words of Abdi Welli, a Somali pastor in Kenya, who was gunned down in the market place in Garissa on 7 February. Another church leader was wounded in the attack. Abdi Welli was a convert from Islam who had served as a missionary in west and east Africa. The militant Islamist group al-Shabaab is suspected of the attack; they have murdered numerous converts from Islam and have also intensified their violence against Christians in Kenya in the past year. Pray for comfort for Abdi Welli’s grieving widow and three children, and that Somali Christians will be preserved from al- Shabaab’s vicious campaign. Subscribe to the prayer points rss feed 3 hours ago

  • Atrocities against Christians in Nigeria continue unabated. In Mubi, Adamawa state, various churches were attacked at the beginning of February; eight Christians were killed and three church buildings and a number of homes set ablaze. The violence drove Christians to stay at home after dark and to keep away from services. A month later, in Sheka, Kano state, 13 Christian factory workers were shot dead. In January a sheikh who claimed to be a commander of the militant Islamist group Boko Haram declared a ceasefire on its behalf, but in March a video was circulated in which one of its leaders, Abubakar Shekau, denied that it had made a truce with anyone. Pray that the Lord will be a wall of fire around His people (Zechariah 2:5) as they face such desperate dangers. Subscribe to the prayer points rss feed Sat, May 2013 00:00

  • On 20 January 2013 the Eritrean security police raided the homes of various Christians and arrested 50 people. One of them was a lady of 85, detained for hosting an underground church in her house. They joined hundreds of other believers currently held in Eritrean prisons, some of them in appalling conditions. Many more have fled the country to escape the persecution and have ended up in prison in Egypt, where they have been subjected to rape, beatings and starvation. Pray for all those Eritrean Christians suffering for their faith in their own country and beyond, that the Lord will be their help and shield (Psalm 33:20). Pray too for a prison ministry, supported by Barnabas, that visits and helps Eritrean Christians jailed in Egypt. Subscribe to the prayer points rss feed Fri, May 2013 00:00

  • Pray for the families of Abdoulaye and Abakachi, two converts from Islam to Christianity who were shot dead by Islamists in northern Cameroon. They were travelling with two other converts around Lake Chad on 19 February when their vehicle was stopped by four armed men who were looking for Abdoulaye. He was the leader of the converts from the Kotoko people group and had last year received a threat from militant Islamist group Boko Haram. The gunmen opened fire, killing Abakachi on the spot. Abdoulaye and another man were also shot; Abdoulaye later died of his injuries. He left a wife and 13 children; Abakachi left a wife and four children. Boko Haram had previously warned all Christian converts in northern Cameroon to return to Islam or “face Allah’s wrath”. Pray that the Lord will protect these vulnerable believers. Subscribe to the prayer points rss feed Thu, May 2013 00:00

  • Give thanks to the Lord for the courage and boldness of the Christians in North Korea who carry on witnessing for Christ despite the savage penalties imposed by the Communist regime. Those who share their faith or distribute Bibles risk torture and probable execution if they are caught, and their families may be dispatched to the country’s infamous labour camps to be starved or worked to death. Yet remarkably, the Church in North Korea is growing well, and some who have fled abroad and become Christians there have even gone back to share Christ with family and friends in their poverty and distress. Pray that God will keep His brave witnesses from harm and continue to add to their number (Acts 2:47). Subscribe to the prayer points rss feed Wed, May 2013 00:00

Read more...

Quick navigation

© Barnabas Aid 1997 - 2013 All rights reserved.
Barnabas Aid is a registered trade mark