Maria Shahbaz and the Logic That Made Abduction Legal

A 13-year-old Christian girl named Maria Shahbaz was abducted in Pakistan in July 2025. She was married to a 30-year-old man named Shehryar Ahmad and converted to Islam. One year later, she remains in Ahmad's custody because a Pakistani court placed her there.

The court's reasoning, as reported by EWTN News on July 17, 2026, was terse: judges looked at Maria and decided she did not appear to be 13.[^1] They set aside her birth certificate and sent her home with her abductor — this despite a prior investigation that had already confirmed she was a minor and found her marriage certificate to be forged.[^2]

On July 16, 2026, Pakistan's Federal Constitutional Court agreed to review that decision. A first hearing was scheduled for July 24.[^1] The review followed a July 9 resolution by the European Parliament, which named Maria's case specifically, called for her return to her family, and urged Pakistan's government to ensure that all cases involving minors or allegations of coercion receive transparent and independent investigations.[^3]

A person whose will was bypassed

The age question, while legally significant, is secondary to something more fundamental. Maria's abduction, forced conversion, and forced marriage would have violated her as a person even if she were older. The court ratified the complete bypassing of a person's will: her freedom to refuse abduction, to refuse conversion, to refuse a husband she had no hand in choosing.

Kelsey Zorzi, director of advocacy for Global Religious Freedom at Alliance Defending Freedom International, named the structural consequence in an interview with EWTN News Nightly: "What it signals to future abductors is that they can find young girls, they can forcibly marry them, they can forcibly convert them to Islam, and then they can tell the judge that their birth certificates are erroneous, and they can tell them that these girls are any age that they appear to be physically."[^1]

That signal runs deeper than age verification. A judicial body substituted visual impression for documentary record, and converted a child's physical development into evidence against her legal personhood. The premise underlying that substitution, that the stronger party's claim overwrites the weaker party's documented identity, is the logic of might making right. Ahmad's ability to complete the abduction, the forced conversion, and the marriage became, in the court's reasoning, the primary fact to which everything else had to conform: Maria's birth certificate, her parents' testimony, the prior forgery finding, her own situation.

In the United States, the conduct Ahmad is alleged to have committed would be prosecuted as kidnapping, and his relationship to Maria would be classified as child sexual abuse regardless of any purported marriage. The legal floor for determining a child's age does not shift based on how old she looks to a judge. In Pakistan, that floor shifted.

Precedent, not anomaly

Zorzi's point is that this ruling does more than harm Maria alone; it establishes a template. Any abductor can dispute a birth certificate, assert the girl appears older, present the completed fact of a forced marriage, and rely on a court's reluctance to remove a girl from a household where she has already been placed. The fait accompli becomes the evidentiary baseline.

Tehmina Arora, ADF International's director of advocacy for Asia, put the same concern in institutional terms: "Throughout Pakistan, the pattern of abductions, forced conversions, and coerced marriages of underage girls to much older men is alarming. Hundreds of girls each year find themselves victims of these sham marriages."[^2] The European Parliament's resolution treated Maria's case as an instance of that documented pattern, calling for government action and independent judicial oversight.[^3] That framing names what the court's reasoning actually does: it creates a replicable pathway. A ruling that can be replicated is a precedent. Each replication further normalizes the logic that power over a person is itself evidence of a legitimate claim to that person.

ADF International's decision to accompany Maria's legal case reflects a judgment that individual dignity requires institutional presence in the proceedings where it is being decided.[^2] Parliamentary resolutions and journalistic attention depend on a legal mechanism functioning. Without that mechanism, a ruling becomes final, advocacy organizations lose standing, and a child's situation is reclassified as a family matter.

What the review does and does not establish

The Federal Constitutional Court's agreement to review the earlier ruling is a procedural fact, not a verdict. The July 24 hearing was the first step in a reevaluation. What it establishes is that the earlier ruling was not treated as settled by the court itself, a limited but real form of institutional accountability.

The external pressure that produced this review came from a specific sequence: ADF International's advocacy, a named European Parliament resolution, and international attention on Pakistan's record in cases involving religious minorities and minors.[^2][^3] The court reopened the case because the cost of not doing so became visible at a level it could not ignore, not on its own initiative. That sequence is itself an answer to why the standard shifted: power remained unchecked where institutional incentives permitted it to, and it was forced to account for itself only where external pressure made avoidance costly.

Maria Shahbaz now has the attention of the international community. Hopefully, that pressure will translate into her freedom and a precedent for other girls in her position.

References

[^1]: Gervasini, T. (2026, July 17). Pakistan court to review ruling in forced conversion, child marriage case. EWTN News / Catholic World Report. https://www.catholicworldreport.com/2026/07/17/pakistan-court-to-review-ruling-in-forced-conversion-child-marriage-case/

[^2]: Alliance Defending Freedom International. (2026, July 9). Christian girl abducted, forced to convert and marry 30-year-old man, seeks justice from Pakistani court [Press release]. https://adfinternational.org/news/christian-girl-abducted-forced-to-convert-and-marry-30-year-old-man-seeks-justice-from-pakistani-court/

[^3]: European Parliament. (2026, July 9). Human rights violations in Sudan, Nigeria and Pakistan [Press release, resolution]. Reference 20260706IPR46319. https://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/nl/press-room/20260706IPR46319/human-rights-violations-in-sudan-nigeria-and-pakistan