“The EU Cannot Look Away” | ECPP MEP Ruissen on Maria Shahbaz and Forced Marriages in Pakistan

Every year, hundreds of Christian and Hindu girls are abducted in Pakistan, forced to convert to Islam, and forced to marry men much older than them. The case of Maria Shahbaz — a 13-year-old Christian girl — has brought this horrific practice to the attention of the European Parliament.

In this interview recorded at the European Parliament in Brussels, Márton Gyöngyösi sits down with ECPP MEP Bert-Jan Ruissen, the initiator of the European Parliament’s urgency resolution on Pakistan, to discuss how this topic made it onto the EU agenda, what the resolution means in practice, and what concrete tools the EU has to hold Pakistan accountable.

The conversation covers the scale of forced marriages and conversions in Pakistan, the failure of Pakistani courts to implement existing laws, the role of Sharia law in undermining secular legal protections, the EU’s Generalised Scheme of Preferences Plus and how it can be used as leverage, and the role of the Special Envoy for Freedom of Religion or Belief in following up on the resolution.

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