Release International

A Christian woman who was abducted, told to convert to Islam and then forced to marry her attacker has escaped and returned home.

Thirty-three-year-old Sania James is now back with her parents in Rawat town, near Rawalpindi, after enduring weeks of what she called 'captivity and torture', according to Compass Direct news agency.

She was kidnapped at gunpoint by armed men who told her father, James Ayub, that he would see his daughter again only if he repaid a loan to his employer, a local farmer – plus 30 per cent interest, a much higher rate than previously agreed. James, who had taken out the loan to pay for his elder daughter's wedding, was given two months to pay up in February – and he and Sania had been working hard to try to repay their debt.

When James failed to pay, Sania says she was taken to the farmer on April 5 and forced to marry him. She also says she refused to convert to Islam and was 'continuously tortured'.

Neighbours in Rawat told Compass Direct that they had been warned that anyone found helping Sania and her family would face 'dire consequences'.

Christian women are particularly vulnerable to this kind of abuse and exploitation in Pakistan society, where they are considered the 'lowest of the low'. In some areas of Pakistan, poor Christians make up the majority of workers trapped in bonded labour, ensnared by loans from their employers that they can never pay off.

(Source: Compass Direct)

• Thank God for Sania's return home. Ask Him to heal and restore her, and keep her and her family safe.
• Pray that the Pakistani authorities will do more to uphold the rights of Christian women such as Sania.

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