In Pakistan, people belonging to the minority Hindu, Christian, and Sikh communities are often kidnapped and forcefully converted or coerced through societal pressures to convert to Islam. Forbes reported that the Human rights organizations estimates that every year 1,000 such girls are forcibly converted to Islam. This estimate could be even higher than 1,000 as many cases remain unreported. The 2020 US media report also estimates the number of forcibly converted girls to be around 1,000 per year. Jürgen Schaflechner, a cultural anthropologist specializing on Hindus in Pakistan, cautions that these conversions are rarely motivated by religious zeal, and are instead a consequence of the commodification of women, and of denying agency to women in a deeply patriarchal society.
