<\/p>\n
What if your daughter went to school one morning and never came home? Then, when you finally found her, a judge told you that you couldn\u2019t even speak to her for ten minutes?<\/p>\n
Listen & subscribe to our daily morning news podcast, Quick Start:<\/em><\/p>\n That\u2019s not a hypothetical. That\u2019s what\u2019s happening right now to the family of Neha, an 18-year-old Christian girl in Pakistan.<\/p>\n Neha\u2019s family works in a brick kiln, which is part of a system of generational debt slavery that, according to Joel Veldkamp of Christian Solidarity International (CSI), disproportionately traps Pakistani Christians. Though Christians represent only about 2% of Pakistan\u2019s population, they make up roughly 60% of the country\u2019s brick kiln workforce.<\/p>\n After her parents had scraped together enough money, Neha was enrolled in a local sewing course. It was a small but hopeful step toward a better future. She only worked there for a short time before one day, she went off to work and didn\u2019t come back.<\/p>\n \u201cNo warning, no communication, nothing,\u201d Veldkamp told CBN. \u201cShe just vanishes.\u201d<\/p>\n When her family went to the police, they were met with indifference. CSI stepped in and secured a lawyer, who filed a habeas petition, and that\u2019s when the picture became even more disturbing. Neha had been found in an Islamic school in Lahore. She had been legally converted to Islam just two days after she disappeared.<\/p>\n The conversion documents claimed Neha had done her own \u201cresearch\u201d and freely chosen to change her religion. One problem: Neha is illiterate.<\/p>\n The case made it to court. Neha was brought to the courthouse, dressed in Islamic clothing from head to toe. Her family was in the same building. The judge ruled summarily against them. When they begged for just ten minutes to speak with their daughter, the judge said no.<\/p>\n In an interview on CBN\u2019s\u00a0Quick Start Podcast<\/em>,\u00a0Veldkamp says the bias in these courts runs deep. \u201cA lot of these judges simply are Muslim supremacists,\u201d he said. \u201cThey think Christians are dirty. They think all Christians should convert to Islam, willingly or otherwise.\u201d He also noted that lawyers and judges who\u00a0have<\/em>\u00a0ruled in favor of Christians have been murdered by extremist groups, a terror that shapes every decision made in these courtrooms.<\/p>\n And Neha\u2019s case is far from unique. Forced conversions like this happen to more than 1,000 Christian and Hindu women in Pakistan every year.<\/p>\n CSI is now pushing for international attention on Neha\u2019s case, working with U.S. and U.K. government contacts, including Lord David Alton of the House of Lords, who has written letters on her behalf. They\u2019re also exploring ways to get members of Congress involved.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re trying to embarrass the Pakistani government into doing the right thing,\u201d Veldkamp said.<\/p>\n For those who want to help, learn more at\u00a0csi-usa.org<\/strong>. The organization supports families financially through the court process, provides legal assistance for Christians facing blasphemy charges, and works to get families out of the brick kiln system altogether.<\/p>\n Please sign up for\u00a0Faithwire\u2019s daily newsletter\u00a0and download the\u00a0CBN News app\u00a0to stay up-to-date with the latest news from a distinctly Christian perspective.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n If you\u2019d like to PARTNER with CBN News and support our mission, we\u2019d love to have you on board. You can join us\u00a0HERE.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" What if your daughter went to school one morning and never came home? Then, when you finally found her, a judge told you that you couldn\u2019t even speak to her for ten minutes? Listen & subscribe to our daily morning news podcast, Quick Start: That\u2019s not a hypothetical. That\u2019s what\u2019s happening right now to the<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":30341,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[10091,72,2358,2279,6748,801,2142],"class_list":["post-30340","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-jesus","tag-captors","tag-christian","tag-courts","tag-girl","tag-islamists","tag-protecting","tag-stole"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30340","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=30340"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30340\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/30341"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=30340"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=30340"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=30340"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}