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AMID the upheavals in Egypt since January, reports have begun to emerge of a surge in disappearances of Coptic girls.
Angela Shanahan
One priest in Cairo estimates that at least 21 young girls, many as young as 14, have disappeared from his parish alone.
In
most cases, when a Christian girl who disappears is found by her
family, she has been converted to Islam and married. The Coptic
authorities, have even set up a series of refuges in monasteries to
handle the growing numbers of girls who wish to return to their
families, many of whom are not accepted by their family of origin.
But a worse problem for these women is that their conversion to Islam is irreversible.
Religion
is stated on Egyptian ID documents and even though secular law provides
for reversions, under the growth of sharia they are very difficult,
except for those affording legal advocacy.
This situation is not unique to Egypt. There have been consistent
reports of girls being coerced into Islamic conversion and marriage in
India, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka.
That many of these girls are
initially runaways is not in doubt. However, there is also evidence that
a huge number are converted and married against their will.
The
situation was documented in a controversial report published in 2009 on
conversion and forced marriage of Coptic women by Washington DC-based
Christian Solidarity International. The authors are Washington academic
Michele Clark and Egyptian Coptic broadcast journalist Nadia Ghaly,
based in Melbourne.
Between 2005 and 2008 they interviewed and
documented 50 Egyptian women, mostly aged between 14 and 25, who had
decided to return to their families. All claim to have been tricked,
coerced or raped, converted to Islam and married. Most of the
interviewees were trying to reconvert to their Christian identity, with
limited or no success. The report's conclusions were printed in several
major publications, including Forbes magazine.
Since the so-called
Arab Spring, and the ensuing riots at Christian churches, the authors
are trying to bring the subject of forced conversion and marriage to
greater prominence.
Both groups live extremely closed, highly
traditional separate lives and the norms surrounding marriage and sex
are almost medieval, says Ghaly.
So, for example, it is not
unheard of for a young Christian girl from a poor family to run away
from an arranged marriage. Yet a high proportion of these women claim
coercion, even rape, despite the shame that such a claim will cause if
the girl wishes to return.
Many claim they were kept as virtual
slaves. Others who were able to leave could not bring their children.
Ghaly claims this is more than overt religious oppression, and amounts
to "a form of cultural genocide".
She cites a document published
by Human Rights Watch in November 2007, which says that even if Coptic
women can obtain a divorce from their Muslim husband, those who wish to
return to Christianity "meet with refusal and harassment from the Civil
Status Department of the Ministry of Interior".
Under sharia law, reconversion is considered apostasy punishable by death.
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