Young Christian girl escaped her kidnapper after a year

05-10-2022

Finia Hilmes

Pakistan & Human Rights Researcher

Global Human Rights Defence

Recently, a young Christian girl, Anita Emmanuel, 17, from Bahawalpur escaped her kidnapper after a year of captivity and was reunited with her family.

At the time of her kidnapping, Anita attended year ten at the government secondary school Yazmaan in Bahawalpur. As both of her parents were working, they arranged for a rikshaw driver, Muhammad Wasim, to drop her off and pick her up from school every day.

After a while, the rikshaw driver Wasim became more friendly with Anita who had the impression that this was normal and thus was not aware of any consequences. Wasim took advantage of the situation that Anita was travelling alone with him every day and began pushing and forcing her into a relationship with him.

According to Anita, she told him off several times, however, he continued forcing the relationship on her. As Anita did not know how her parents would react, she was indecisive regarding whether she should tell them about Wasim.

On August 31st, 2021, Wasim kidnapped the young girl and took her to a different town, Liaquatpur, in the Rahim Yar Khan district. Anita stated that she realized that Wasim was not going the usual route that day and asked him for the reason. Wasim, however, did not show any reaction and kept driving. Anita reported that when she was trying to shout, Wasim stopped the rikshaw and threatened to kill her if she would not keep quiet.

Anita described that she was kept locked inside a room where Wasim repeatedly sexually abused her. When she would fight back, he would leave her to starve. Furthermore, Anita explained that some days she was not given any water.

One day people came inside, and Wasim forced Anita to sign some documents and told her that she was now a Muslim and married to him. Anita expressed how helpless she felt at that moment and how she did not see any other option than to follow the instructions.

Meanwhile, Anita’s parents started searching for their daughter and were told by a security guard of her school that she left with Wasim after school as usual. Her father, Emmanuel Masih, tried to contact Wasim, however, without receiving any response. Therefore, Masih went to the Baghdad ADA Aljadeed police station in Bahawalpur to report his missing daughter and request help while also providing the details of Wasim. The police told the father that he would need to wait until the next day before the police would take any action. The next morning, Masih went to the police station again and requested the registering of a first information report against Wasim and the recovery of his daughter. Instead of taking those actions, the police wrote a complaint against Wasim and told the father that he will be contacted in case his daughter would be found.

Wasim came to the father's house a few days after, threatening him that he would never see Anita again if he would not withdraw the complaint. Additionally, Wasim told Masih that he had married his daughter and that she had converted to Islam.

A year later, Anita found an opportunity to escape her kidnapper and make it back to her family. Her father described Anita’s condition as weary when she arrived. As Wasim kept threatening the family, Masih decided to move with his family to another town to provide safety for Anita and the rest of the family.

Sources and further reading:

CLAAS-UK (Centre for Legal Aid Assistance & Settlement). (2019, November 28). About us. Retrieved October 5, 2022, from https://www.claas.org.uk/who-we-are/.