Anti-conversion laws on rise in South Asia: USCIRF

Anti-conversion laws are on the rise in South Asia and the US must work with its allies and apply pressure on governments to rescind laws that deny individuals the right to share and choose their religion freely, the US Commission for International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) said Tuesday.

In a special report titled 'Limitations on Minorities: Religious Freedom in South Asia', the USCIRF said that over the last decade, governments across the South Asia region have taken legal measures to prohibit religious conversions from the dominant religious group.

"Often the motivation behind these laws, though not officially stated as such, is to protect the dominant religious tradition from a perceived threat from minority religious groups," it said.

The USCIRF is an independent, bipartisan US federal government commission created in 1998, that reviews religious freedom violations abroad and makes policy recommendations to the President, the Secretary of State, and Congress.

Observing that there is a distressing trend, the USCIRF report said that the US government must work with its allies in South Asia through regional capacity-building efforts and by applying pressure on governments to rescind laws that deny individuals the right to share and choose their religion freely.

"The methods of preventing conversion vary: in India, several state legislatures have adopted laws limiting conversions away from Hinduism; in Pakistan, national blasphemy laws are used to criminalise attempts by non-Muslims to convert Muslims; and in India, Pakistan, and Nepal, governments are tightening their control over non-governmental organizations (NGOs), especially foreign missionary groups," the report says.

USCIRF Commissioner Nadine Maenza said the anti-conversion laws are frequently abused by extremists who seek to prevent anyone from leaving the majority religion.

"These laws abrogate the religious freedom rights of minority communities, such as Hindus in Pakistan or Christians in Nepal, and as such they should be rescinded," Maenza said.

The report also notes that in some instances, especially in the aftermath of major natural disasters like Nepal's 2015 earthquake and Sri Lanka's 2004 tsunami, some proselytizing groups have upset majority sentiments by focusing their efforts on disenfranchised subgroups within the dominant religious tradition, such as Dalits (or Untouchables) in Hindu-majority countries.

"There have been accusations that some of these groups induce individuals to convert by predicating aid or food assistance on conversion of the recipient," the USCIRF said.

Sensitivities are also heightened among the majority religious population over interfaith marriages or marriages predicated on the conversion of one spouse, it said.

"Despite the persistence of these allegations, credible data has not been presented to demonstrate the extent and nature of these alleged coerced conversions," it added.