Members of the European Parliament are urging Mairead McGuinness, the European Union's special envoy for Freedom of Religion or Belief, to engage with Pakistan over forced religious conversions as the country's Federal Constitutional Court is due to hear 13-year-old Maria Shahbaz's appeal on Friday.
The calls follow growing concern over reports of the abduction, forced conversion, and marriage of girls from Pakistan's Christian and Hindu minority communities. In a resolution passed in the European Parliament on July 9, lawmakers called on Pakistan to investigate and prosecute those responsible, while urging the EU to continue raising the issue in its political dialogue with Islamabad.
Calls for special envoy engagement
Speaking at a conference on forced marriage and religious conversions held at the European Parliament last week, Slovak member of the European Parliament Miriam Lexmann said she had recently met with McGuinness to discuss the issue.
"We urge her to see this as a big priority," Lexmann said, adding that the envoy "has to make this a key priority for the coming months and coming years."
Carmen Correas López, legal officer for Europe at ADF International, which is supporting Maria's case, told EWTN News the organization is working to arrange a September meeting with the special envoy to discuss the case and broader concerns about the persecution of Christians.
Maria's appeal
Maria, whose case is unrelated to the separate 2020 case involving Christian activist Maira Shahbaz, was abducted in July 2025 at the age of 12 and was allegedly forced to convert to Islam before being married to a man who was about 30 years old.
Pakistan's Federal Constitutional Court is due to hear her review petition on Friday. The petition seeks to overturn an earlier judgment handed down in March that allowed Maria to remain with the man accused of abducting, forcibly converting, and marrying her.
ADF International said Maria's case reflects a broader pattern of forced marriage and religious conversion affecting girls from Pakistan's minority communities and could establish an important legal precedent.
According to research published by the Pakistan-based organization Voice for Justice, there were 210 documented cases involving Christian girls between 2019 and 2025. The organization said many victims' ages were falsified in official records and alleges that police, local officials, and religious figures facilitated fraudulent marriage and conversion documents.
Maria's father, Shahbaz Masih, told EWTN News that international support had given the family renewed hope after repeated legal setbacks.
"Repeated failures to obtain justice through the courts had all but extinguished our hope of bringing Maria home," Masih said. "But the overwhelming outpouring of support and solidarity, not only from Christians in Pakistan but also from Christians around the world, has rekindled our hope that we will one day be reunited with our daughter."
A test for the special envoy
The increased focus on Maria's case follows the appointment of former European commissioner McGuinness as special envoy in March, ending a vacancy of more than a year that Christian advocacy groups and lawmakers had criticized as undermining the EU's engagement on freedom of religion or belief.
Commenting on McGuinness' appointment, Professor Shahid Mobeen of the Pontifical Theological Faculty Teresianum in Rome and president of the Italian Roundtable on Freedom of Religion or Belief said the move should lead to stronger EU engagement with Pakistan.
"The appointment of the European Union's new special envoy for the promotion of freedom of religion or belief makes it necessary that the envoy engages actively with the Pakistani authorities and civil society in support of meaningful reforms," he said at the conference.
Mobeen also called on the EU to use Pakistan's GSP+ status, which grants the country preferential access to the EU market in return for meeting human rights obligations, to press for stronger protections for religious minorities.
"The European Union should, therefore, make full use of the GSP+ monitoring mechanism, paying particular attention to Pakistan's commitment to freedom of religion or belief and ensuring that these commitments are effectively implemented and translated into tangible improvements for vulnerable communities," he said.
EWTN News sought comment from the European Commission, including on whether the special envoy intends to engage with Pakistani authorities following Parliament's resolution, but did not receive a response by the time of publication.
