FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Experts Form an International “Coalition to End Sexual Enslavement and Religious Persecution (CEaSE RP)”
Friday, November 5, 2021 10:00 AM
Ethno-religious extremists and complicit government officials have engaged in religious persecution through sexual violence targeting women and children, most notably in Nigeria, but in other countries as well, session concludes.
NAPLES, FL — Experts gathered to address the persecution of religious groups through “forced marriage” and “forced conversion.” To discuss how best to respond, the International Catholic Jurists Forum (ICJF) gathered twenty-one leading experts in the fields of international religious freedom and social communications in a three-day on-line strategy session, October 28-30, 2021.
At the meeting, experts resolved to form a new international network, the international Coalition to End Sexual Enslavement and Religious Persecution (CEaSE RP). It will press for the end to religious persecution through sexual slavery while promoting accountability, victim rescue, rehabilitation, and reintegration, international involvement, and humanitarian aid. That the group is focusing on “sexual enslavement” is an important development.
Jane Adolphe, Founder & Executive Director, International Catholic Jurists Forum, and Professor of Law, Ave Maria School of Law said: “The terms themselves (forced marriage and forced conversion) are problematic for a number of reasons. Above all, they fail to articulate the vicious nature of the crimes, whereby victims, as young as twelve, are often abducted, raped, forced to cohabitate with the rapist and to renounce their religion and religious beliefs, while remaining in a perpetual condition of sexual enslavement subject to continuous inhumane treatment by the rapist and his family. The fortunate ones who have escaped or have been rescued are often confined to safe houses because they are hunted down like dogs because they are considered apostates, the penalty for which is death.”
The meeting heard eye-witness testimony of Nigerians to the sexual enslavement of Christian women and girls at the hands of Islamic terrorist groups such as Boko Haram and ISWAP as well as members of the Fulani, an ethnic-religious group. They have been calling on the international community to intervene due to the unwillingness of the Buhari government to effectively act, and protect its own citizens from sexual enslavement, and Christian communities from destruction.
Gloria Puldu, President of the Leah Foundation said: “The Nigerian Government has failed to protect its own citizens, namely girls abducted from government owned schools, over 20 of them have been attacked this year (2021).” She continues: “The Nigerian Government has failed to prioritize the rescue and return of sexually enslaved girls like Leah Sharibu, a Christian who refused to convert to Islam, as well as the 110 remaining Chibok girls, in addition to many more kidnapped and enslaved women and children.”
Joseph Fidelis, a Nigerian priest of the Maiduguri Catholic diocese, operates a trauma unit in the epicenter of the persecution and genocide of Christians through sexual violence and other means. He stated: “Our approach is survivor-centered. We bring healing to the victims, while creating a safe environment to administer trauma healing and psychosocial support programs. International efforts are needed to strengthen weak government agencies and institutions as well as challenge the silence of the central government and its inaction to criminalize and prosecute perpetrators of such violence. Yet, our efforts must go beyond current regimes. We must seek lasting solutions.”
Sexual enslavement is happening in other countries, as well.
Tabassum Yousaf, legal advocate at the High Court, in Pakistan, explained the close link between forced conversion certificates and forced marriage. She said: “In Pakistan there are age limits for marriage but not for conversion to Islam. Once a girl is forced to sign a conversion certificate under duress by her abductor and rapist, she can no longer abandon Islam or else face her own death. That is why it is important to underline the religious component of these crimes. Victims are taken from minorities that are more often ignored by the administration of justice. And even when we win their cases in Court, it can happen again and again, because there is no minimum age under the law for conversions to be approved by the government”.
A related issue concerns the plight of children born of rape. Some advocates are lobbying for the development of a United Nations resolution that would provide these children with immediate assistance
Susan Yoshihara of the American Council on Women, Peace & Security said that Western nations should not tie the fate of Ezidi (also called Yazidi) children born of sexual slavery by ISIS to the fraught question of what to do with former ISIS fighters and their families. The Ezidi children born of war, Dr. Yoshihara said, “do not constitute a threat of importing extremist ideology to third countries, in fact they bring the opposite influence.” Furthermore: “Hundreds of thousands of children born of sexual violence around the world have never received identity documents, gone to school, traveled freely, or even practices their mother’s religion.”
A few participants involved in facilitating and supporting efforts for the extraction and resettlement of persons stranded in Afghanistan (2021), offered their insights. The abandoned have included: Americans, Afghan converts to Christianity, and Afghan allies of the West.
“A successful approach has been public-private partnership to rescue kidnapped and enslaved girls and women in the Islamic world. In Afghanistan, we are witnessing a historic 21st century underground railroad. Maybe it can continue and extend to other places. We need to discover how this could work in Nigeria and Pakistan,” said Nina Shea, Esq., Director of the Hudson Institutes Religious Freedom Center.
The group also discussed policy and legal initiatives promoted by private citizens, non-governmental organizations, inter-governmental entities, ecclesiastical advisors, and governmental officials.
“Rescuing trafficking victims and holding perpetrators to account for trafficking in minors go hand in hand. We must do both to advance the cause of justice. The Global Liberty Alliance looks forward to working with fellow liberty warriors in the U.S., Latin America, and beyond on this important effort,” said Jason Poblete, Esq., President, Global Liberty Alliance, and ICJF Advisor.
“There should be collaborative casework and support of law enforcement by civil society to work cases of trafficking or violence to ensure there is a multidisciplinary approach (social workers, lawyers, investigators),” said International Human Rights Lawyer, Shawn F. Kohl.
Paul Diamond, Barrister in the United Kingdom, who discussed child sexual exploitation in Rotherham, and other towns across the United Kingdom, said: “Sexual enslavement on religious grounds is not limited to non-Western countries. It is (conservatively) estimated that 1400 girls alone in Rotherham, some as young as 11, were multiply raped, by multiple men at multiple locations. The perpetrations were mainly Muslim men of Pakistani origin, whilst the victims were mainly white British children. The authorities repeatedly blocked inquiries, both downplaying and minimizing the problem by asserting that the relationships were consensual or that the girls were provocative, while the media remained silent in 2002 only exposing the ring in 2011. In two instances, fathers who had tracked down their daughters to houses where they were being sexual abused were subsequently arrested by the police.”
Tireless advocates for the protection of these women and girls view this international “Coalition to End Sexual Enslavement and Religious Persecution” (CEaSE RP) as an important step forward. Consider the comments from the Aid to the Church in Need, a Pontifical Foundation and Catholic aid organization, whose mission is to support Christians in need. It has been fighting the problem for years covering the crimes in its annual report.
Marcela Symanski, Editor of ACN “Religious Freedom in the World” (RFW) report said: “Over the last six years as Editor of the RFW report, I have noticed a steady increase in the use of sexual violence against women and children, as a long-term strategy to eliminate religious groups. Transnational organizations of Islamist extremists are notorious users of this tactic. The Islamic State departed Iraq and Syria only to resurge in sub-Saharan Africa. Clearly, other power-hungry groups are learning from the extremists, and even governments are permitting the violence, reaping certain political benefits from the disappearance of a particular religious group. This has to stop now.”
Buttressing the above efforts are those of Laura Bramon Hassan, Director of the Philomena Project, which advances human dignity at the intersection of child marriage, canon law, and Catholic culture. She stated: “Canon 1083’s minimum age of marriage – 14 for girls and 16 for boys – needs to be reconsidered in light of girls’ health, and the credibility of local church engagement on issues such as sexual consent, statutory rape, sexual offender registries and other civil provisions addressing sex acts between adults and children.”
The group agreed that stigmatization related to sexual violence and the children born of rape compounds the damage. Many rescued victims and their babies are viewed with suspicion when they return to their families and communities and for this reason others choose never to return home, after their escape or release.
Helene Fisher, Global Gender Persecution Specialist, Open Doors International, gave a good synopsis of the type of religious persecution:
“World Watch annual research shows that globally across 50 countries, sexual violence is the most frequent form of violence used against women and girls to either punish or coerce them because of their Christian identity. This is especially visible in the high rates of so called ‘forced marriage’, and it overlaps with the rising levels of abduction and human trafficking. Addressing the sexual enslavement of women and girls as a form of religious persecution is an extremely urgent need.”
Coalition Chair Jason Poblete, Esq., Global Liberty Alliance, will be steering the effort with Co-Chairs Dr. Jane Adolphe, Esq., Founder & Executive Director, ICJF & Professor of Law, Ave Maria School of Law, and Helen Fisher, Global Gender Persecution Specialist, Open Doors International.
The on-line international meeting was organized and moderated by the International Catholic Jurists Forum (ICJF), headquartered at Ave Maria School of Law, in Naples, Florida. It gathered experts from Belgium, France, Nigeria, Poland, Romania, the United Kingdom, and the United States.
It is the fourth major initiative organized by ICJF on the persecution and genocide of Christians. The first one was held in 2016, which led to the book edited by Ronald J. Rychlak, Jane F. Adolphe, The Persecution and Genocide of Christians in the Middle East: Prevention, Prohibition, & Prosecution (Angelico Press: 2017); The second international expert meeting on the persecution and genocide of Christians in Sub-Saharan Africa created The Strategy Coalition to Protect Christians and Religious Pluralism in Sub-Sahara. This coalition held meetings in Washington that resulted in successful outcomes in the areas of humanitarian aid and policy initiatives. The third event involved the creation of a series of videos by ICJF to support the Global Prayer for China Campaign launched in May 2021 by a coalition of lay Christians responding to Cardinal Bo’s call for prayer for the Church and Peoples of China.