Badshahi Mosque, Lahore, Pakistan. (Romero Maia, Creative Commons)
LAHORE, Pakistan (Christian Daily International–Morning Star News) – A Pakistan court on Wednesday (May 6) rejected the official birth record of a Christian girl allegedly forced to convert to Islam and ordered a medical exam to determine her age, according to the family’s lawyer.
Supreme Court attorney Saqib Jillani said a two-judge bench of the Federal Constitutional Court (FCC), Justice Aamer Farooq and Justice K.K. Agha, questioned the authenticity of the birth certificate issued by the National Database and Registration Authority (NADRA) for Sonia Tariq, whose family says she is 15 years old.
Sonia has claimed that she is 20, converted to Islam voluntarily and does not wish to return to her Christian family.
Jillani said Sonia was 13 when she began working at a beauty parlor in Lahore, Punjab Province, and was pressured to convert to Islam.
“Her father, Tariq Nadeem, registered an abduction case against unidentified persons when his daughter did not return home from work on Nov. 7, 2024,” Jillani told Christian Daily International-Morning Star News. “A few days later, Nadeem named Sonia’s Muslim co-worker, Ayesha Akram, her father Akram Barkat and another person, Zulfiqar Dogar, accusing them of abducting her for sexual exploitation under the guise of Islamic conversion and marriage.”
Sonia later told a magistrate that she had converted to Islam willingly and did not want to return to her Christian family, though the statement appeared to have been made under duress, Jillani said.
“The family then moved the Lahore High Court seeking her custody, but the court instead sent her to the Darul Amaan, a government shelter for women,” he said. “The court noted that the girl was a minor according to her NADRA birth record and directed that a magistrate decide the issue of custody in light of her alleged religious conversion.”
Jillani said Sonia’s alleged kidnappers sought custody of her from the shelter in January 2025, claiming before a magistrate that she wanted to live with a Muslim friend. The magistrate rejected the application, ruling that the high court had placed her under his parental jurisdiction and he would not permit her to leave the shelter.
Jillani, however, said the suspect approached another magistrate in June 2025 “in connivance with the in-charge of the shelter,” who then allowed Sonia to leave with whomever she wished.
The family subsequently challenged the high court’s order before Pakistan’s Supreme Court, arguing that Sonia should not remain in a shelter even if she had changed her faith. The petition was later transferred to the FCC, which two weeks ago ordered police to produce her before the court, Jillani said.
“In Wednesday’s hearing, our main contention was that we fear the minor child has been forcibly converted and may already have been married or could soon be married, which is why her custody should be restored to her parents,” he said. “We also told the court that the family has no objection to her conversion if it was truly of her own free will.”
He said Sonia told the court she did not want to return home because her parents would pressure her to revert to Christianity.
“I objected that the girl was making these statements under the influence and pressure of her abductors, and argued that she cannot legally be kept away from her parents until she reaches the age of 18,” Jillani said.
Responding to family concerns that Sonia may have already been married following her conversion, police told the court that no marriage had taken place, he said.
“However, I do not trust the police’s claim because there is no centralized system in place to verify such marriages,” Jillani added.
During Wednesday’s proceedings, the judges openly questioned the assumption that NADRA records are immune from manipulation.
“Who says NADRA records cannot be tampered with?” Farooq asked when Jillani presented Sonia’s birth certificate.
The judge remarked that official records in Pakistan could easily be manipulated, the attorney said.
“Go to NADRA and get whatever you want done – anything can happen in this country,” Farooq said, adding that such practices were unfortunately common.
He added that courts could not automatically rely on NADRA documents to determine age, noting that parents frequently understated the ages of their children in official records.
Additional Advocate General Punjab Waseem Mumtaz Malik argued that if Sonia was found to be under 18, she should be returned to her parents; otherwise, she should remain at Darul Amaan in Lahore.
The FCC subsequently ordered an ossification test to determine Sonia’s age. Pending the results, the court directed that she be kept at the Darul Amaan instead of the beauty parlor where she reportedly had been staying.
The court also permitted her parents to meet her there and adjourned the hearing until May 20.
Nadeem, Sonia’s 57-year-old father, said the family had spent nearly two years trying to regain custody of their daughter after she disappeared.
“I’m suffering from an eye disease and cannot work,” he told Christian Daily International-Morning Star News. “My wife and I have five children – three daughters and two sons – and Sonia is our second child. My sons are still very young and remain at home, while my wife and two daughters work as domestic helpers to provide food for the family.”
Nadeem said police pressured him to abandon the case rather than help recover his daughter.
“They kept telling me that she had converted to Islam and married of her own free will,” he said. “They did not show us any evidence of her marriage but kept pressuring me to stop searching for her.”
He said he believed his daughter had been coerced into renouncing Christianity by her Muslim co-workers.
“It is quite clear that she is under their influence and pressure, which is why she insists on staying with them,” he said. “We remain hopeful that once the court determines she is a minor, she will be returned to our custody.”
The latest development marks the second time the FCC has questioned the reliability of NADRA records in a high-profile conversion and marriage case involving a Christian minor.
In a controversial Feb. 3 ruling, another FCC bench upheld the marriage of 13-year-old Christian girl Maria Shahbaz to Shehryar Ahmad, a 30-year-old Muslim man whom her family accused of abducting her.
In its detailed judgment issued on March 25, the two-judge bench questioned the reliability of NADRA and local union council records, citing delayed registration, inconsistencies in documentation and contradictions in testimony regarding her age. The court ruled that such records, without satisfactory explanation or independent corroboration, could not be treated as conclusive proof.
Pakistan ranked 8th on Open Doors’ 2026 World Watch List of the 50 countries where it is most difficult to be a Christian.
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