A three-member group is found to be involved in fake marriages of Chinese nationals with Pakistani Christian girls as all the marriages had been registered in Rawalpindi’s Union Council no 26.
More than 50 marriages of Pakistani girls with Chinese nationals had been registered in Rawalpindi’s Union Council no 26 Afandi Colony Sadiqabad.
Hafiz Fazaldad Chishti and Molvi Muhammad Ali solemnized Nikah of all Muslim girls while Pastor Alexander performed marriage rituals of Christian girls.
Hafiz Fazaldad Chishti, Molvi Muhammad Ali and Pastor Alexander allegedly took Rs50,000 of every marriage. Secretary Union Council no 26 played key role in registration of marriages.
In recent weeks, more than two dozen Chinese nationals and local Pakistani middlemen, including at least one Catholic priest, were arrested in connection with alleged sham marriages.
Pakistan s Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) said that "gangs of Chinese criminals are trafficking Pakistani women in the garb of marriage into the sex trade". It said one gang posed as engineers working on a power project while arranging weddings and sending women to China for fees ranging from $12,000 to $25,000 per woman.
Christian women - who come from a mostly poor and marginalised community - are seen to be particularly targeted by traffickers, who pay their parents hundreds or thousands of dollars.
China had denied that Pakistani women are being trafficked into prostitution, saying that "several media reports have fabricated facts and spread rumours".
But it admitted this week that there had been a surge in Pakistani brides applying for visas this year - with 140 applications in the year to date, a similar amount to all of 2018. A official from the Chinese embassy in Islamabad said it had blocked at least 90 applications.
China has one of the most heavily skewed gender ratios in the world, with 106.3 men for every 100 women as of 2017, according to the World Bank. That tilt is a product of nearly three decades of strict enforcement of China’s one-child policy and a preference for boys over girls — a combination that caused an untold number of forced abortions and female infanticides.
But the long-term human costs of this gender imbalance have only recently come into view — and they are having an impact far beyond China’s borders.
