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The ‘complex, subtle and violent’ persecution of Christian women

A report from the Open Doors organization describes the difficult situation endured by women who practice Christianity.

Imagen de una mujer cristiana perseguida cortesía de Puertas Abiertas.

(Puertas Abiertas)

Published by
Santiago Ospital

"Get ready, tomorrow you will marry your stepmother's nephew. I didn't raise you well, maybe he will." Sara, 15 years old, had spent the last 10 days locked in her room, without eating. With those words, her father, a Muslim, informed her of the sentence for her transgression: defending Christianity at the family table.

The young woman from Baghdad, Iraq, had begun to read the Bible. Her father had told her that it were nothing more than invented stories and repeated prayers that served as little more than an exercise in memorization. The predominant faith in her neighborhood, Christianity, had caught her attention. Her family did not react as expected: "I felt very scared and shocked, since my father has always been kind to me."

After she escaped, Sara began attending an Open Doors center, an organization that ensures the safety of Christians in more than 70 countries. This week, the group published a report on the violence that Christian women suffer just for being women and Christians.

"For women and girls, persecution is complex , subtle and violent," warns the Report Based on Persecution and Sex, which also adds Christian women often suffer persecution on two fronts: as women and worshipers of Jesus, which are often combined with other factors such as poverty and forced displacement. These circumstances foster "conditions of extreme insecurity" for women who profess the Christian faith.

While newspapers, activists and authorities focus on Women's Day this March 8, in the shadows, out of headlines and public events, remain the women who make up the persecuted Christian community, which last year exceeded 365 million believers who suffered "high levels of persecution and discrimination for their faith," according another study from the organization.

Rape, forced marriage, kidnapping...

“A person's sex can define their experience with persecution,” the study states. Taking this into account, it ensures that Christian women and girls are especially “vulnerable to sexual violence,” while men and boys "face a greater risk of physical violence." Both forms of violence often go hand in hand, as illustrated by a case in southern India described in the report:

A shocking example of this is the story of two Christian women belonging to the Kuki population of Manipur who were sexually assaulted while the father and brother of one of the victims was beaten to death.

"Family members exert all types of violence and pressure to make Christians give up and return to the family religion," explains an expert cited by Open Doors about the situation in Morocco, a country in North Africa. "Women are much more vulnerable," she adds, to this pressure.

This violence, according to the report, is the most frequent form of harassment, present in countries across the world like North Korea, Mexico, Nicaragua, Niger, Colombia, Oman and the other 44 countries on the World List of Persecution 2024, which lists the cases most serious cases of anti-Christian persecution.

Beyond this type of persecution, the five most common forms of abuse are forced marriage and kidnapping, as well as sexual, physical and psychological violence; all with the objective of tarnishing or directly destroying the "supposed sexual and family honor." Men, are targeted in the eyes of their persecutors due to "their supposed strength as leaders and financial providers."

Regarding forced marriage, Open Doors assures that "it is a form of exploitation and control, and in many cases this risk is rooted in sexual violence." It also highlights that it increased by 84% since the last time data was recorded. Many times, the goal of this "worryingly common practice" is to force conversion:

In some areas of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Mali, Kyrgyzstan and Mozambique, wedding kidnapping for religious reasons is a risk. Christian women and girls may be kidnapped and forcibly married to soldiers and other non-Christians, often to Muslim men.
Across the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region, women and girls who have converted from another religion, such as Islam, are at risk of being forced to marry a non-Christian man who has some religious authority or that he is committed to the faith, in the hope that his influence on them will cause them to recant. Young women may be forced to marry men much older than them.

Sexual violence as a weapon of war

Christian women of all ages are "easy targets" for sexual offenders in the context of widespread violence, such as war or forced displacement, or impunity, in cases like Pakistan (ranked seventh on the World List of Persecution 2024), where the lack of legislation facilitates early marriages of girls belonging to minority groups such as Christians. These include rape, forced sterilization, forced abortion, prostitution, slavery and forced marriage.

It should be noted that many of the scenarios where harassment of Christian women is prevalent are located within the doors of the family home. They are "subtle," in the words of the organization. A witness to the situation in Bangladesh (number 26 on the 2024 World Persecution List) assures:

Both men and women experience violence, but the distinguishing feature is that men tend to be subject to visible, often public, acts of religious persecution, while women tend to suffer invisible persecution that often involves shame and sexuality.

The "hidden nature" of these types of attacks and the stigmatization of sexual violence result in an "invisibility that makes data collection difficult," according to the study. Attacks in domestic settings, for example, are often not "reported for fear of dishonoring the family or other reprisals."

However, sexual abuse is not limited to the domestic sphere. In situations such as armed confrontations, sexual violence can be used as a weapon of war:

Sexual violence is often used as a weapon of war to sow terror, change the ethnic balance in disputed areas, force population displacement, or provide a "reward" to soldiers.

In turn, disputes increase sexual violence within homes:

Intimate partner violence remains the most common form of sexual violence, both within and outside conflict-affected communities. To cite one case, research has revealed that during the Yemeni Civil War, patterns of domestic violence, including sexual violence, have increased.

Is there hope?

Open Doors experts also assure that conditions of extreme persecution occur when an incident aggravates conditions of previous vulnerabilities. In other words: "You can predict how a society will treat its most vulnerable members in times of insecurity by observing how it treats them under more stable conditions." Understand: to stop future sources of persecution for Christian women, we must focus on societies where women are undervalued and unprotected, and where Christianity is a mistreated minority.

Paying attention even to cases where the attack on the latter serves as reinforcement or cohesion of majority values:

For example, in Niger, Christian women are vulnerable to sexual harassment because they do not adhere to Islamic dress codes.

The organization also insists that women and pastors must gain prominence in the search for solutions, and in this sense they highlight:

Local religious actors may be uniquely positioned to understand and respond to the needs of their communities, including their spiritual needs. They are known and trusted, and are often already embedded in the community.

"Change is possible and, in fact, it is already underway," the report says. "This is an encouragement and an invitation to participate."

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