In Pakistan’s Punjab province, the Christian parents of 15-year-old Sagar Masih are appealing for his return, saying he was pressured into converting to Islam at a factory job. A rights group says the case is one of a growing number of similar reports involving underage Christian boys in that country.
Sagar’s parents believe factory co-workers pressured him to leave his Christian faith, adopt Muslim prayer practices and convert to Islam, sometimes offering him rewards. This was affirmed in a statement released by the United Kingdom-based Centre for Legal Aid, Assistance and Settlement (CLAAS-UK), a Christian advocacy group.
“We are deeply concerned for Sagar’s safety and welfare. He is only 15 years old and must first and foremost be treated as a child in need of protection," said CLAAS-UK Director Nasir Saeed. “Freedom of religion is a fundamental right, but religious freedom must genuinely be free. There can be no place for coercion, threats, inducements or exploitation of a child’s poverty and vulnerability."
The family said Sagar came from a low-income Christian household and had taken the factory job to help support it. The family alleges the factory recorded Sagar’s name as "Sagar Muhammad," even though his legal name is Sagar Masih.
“We only want our child. We want our son returned to us and kept safe. We do not want anything else," the boy's father, Babar, told CLAAS-UK.
The family claims Sagar was required to pray in the Islamic style five times a day before converting, according to Worthy News.
Family members said they spent several days looking for Sagar before they found video footage of him with religious clerics and others. They went to the police, seeking his return and an explanation of the alleged conversion.
Police reportedly told the family Sagar had already become Muslim and that any recourse would go through the courts.
Sagar’s father said police gave the family contradictory details about the timing and process for his son’s return.
Family members allege Sagar told officers that he wished to return but was later pressured to stay away from relatives.
Officials eventually indicated a court would need to decide the matter, according to reports.
“We are particularly concerned about the growing number of cases involving underage Christian boys allegedly being converted to Islam," Saeed said. "The issue of forced conversion is often associated with Christian girls, but boys can also be extremely vulnerable, particularly when poverty forces them into employment at a young age and places them under the influence of adults outside their families.”
Saeed urged authorities to confirm Sagar’s true age and look into whether he faced improper pressure. This would require an interview in a location which is safe, impartial and free of interested parties.
CLAAS-UK's demands include an independent inquiry, confirmation of Sagar’s age and how the alleged conversion came about, safeguards for the teenager and court proceedings that put his welfare and best interests first.
Open Doors, a Christian advocacy group that ranks 50 countries each year by the severity of persecution Christians face, placed Pakistan eighth on its 2026 World Watch List.
Pakistani Christians face problems ranging from routine bias to the risk of lethal attacks, and blasphemy statutes have reportedly been used against Christians and other minority faiths, the group says:
Christian men and boys are compelled to take low-status or hazardous jobs, often labelled 'Chura' (filthy), or trapped in bonded labor such as brick-kilns. Some conceal their faith to avoid losing jobs or facing charges. Reports of sexual abuse of boys are rising, with victims silenced by fear and shame.
Kelsey Zorzi, the Director of Advocacy for Global Religious Freedom with Alliance Defending Freedom, told PJ Media:
Pakistan continues to face a serious crisis of forced conversion among religious-minority children, particularly Christian girls, who are disproportionately affected. But boys are increasingly victims of these abuses as well. Children subjected to forced conversion are often especially fearful of speaking out against their perpetrators when they are separated from their families or subjected to coercion and exploitation.
Christian persecution in Pakistan equally targets the entire community, including adults and children.
On August 16, 2025, for instance, Saleem Masih, a Christian laborer in Sialkot district, Punjab, was stabbed to death after trying to rescue a Christian boy, who was being threatened by two Muslim men.
These are not isolated incidents. Pakistani Christian boys face severe human rights violations, primarily driven by systemic discrimination, the misuse of strict blasphemy laws, police brutality, and targeted communal violence. Human rights organizations like Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch frequently document how young Christian men and boys are disproportionately vulnerable to legal abuse and mob violence in Pakistan.
Under Pakistan's penal code, blasphemy convictions can carry life imprisonment or the death penalty. Although young boys might eventually be acquitted — such as in the case that led to the exoneration of teens Adil Babar and Simon Nadeem — they could spend years behind bars during their formative youth.
A blasphemy accusation alone often triggers immediate, violent retaliation from Muslim mobs. Christian boys in the country have been severely beaten or killed by vigilantes. For example, in August 2026, 17-year-old Ikhlaq Masih was brutally beaten by a local gang after attempting to protect Christian girls from harassment.
When a Christian youth is accused of a crime, local mobs frequently target their entire family or neighborhood.
In 2012, a 16-year-old Christian boy was arrested on blasphemy charges in the Pakistani city of Karachi. The boy, named by police as Ryan Stanten, was accused of forwarding a text message which allegedly contained "offensive material" regarding Islam. The following day an angry crowd ransacked his family home, setting fire to their belongings on the street.
Mass rioting, such as the 2023 Jaranwala attacks, has resulted in the burning of dozens of Christian homes and churches, leaving young boys and their families displaced. The Jaranwala attacks happened after two Christian brothers were accused of committing blasphemy against the Koran.
Security forces have a history of conducting mass sweeps in Christian neighborhoods, arbitrarily detaining and "disappearing" dozens of young Christian men without formal charges.
Christian youths taken into police or federal custody face severe physical, sexual, and psychological abuse. Human rights groups have documented cases where Christian boys were tortured into signing false confessions or subjected to severe physical trauma and sexual abuse while awaiting trial.
International watchdogs and local bodies like the National Commission for Justice and Peace (NCJP) criticize the Islamic supremacist mindset embedded in Pakistani public school curricula, which isolates Christian students and fosters bullying.
Christian boys face systemic barriers to higher education and white-collar employment, often forcing them into hazardous, low-paying labor sectors like brick kilns, sanitation work, or basic service jobs.
Other non-Muslims in the country are also targets of persecution and discrimination. In August 2021, an 8-year-old Hindu boy became the youngest person ever charged with blasphemy in Pakistan. He was accused of intentionally urinating on a carpet in a library containing religious books. The boy spent one week in jail before the charges were dropped. His eventual release was met with severe backlash from some local Muslims, forcing the child and his family to be put in protective custody for fear of reprisal.
The true measure of a civilization lies not in its wealth or infrastructure, but rather in how it treats its most vulnerable children. When a nation turns its state machinery against children—systematically abusing and persecuting them simply for their religion or ethnicity—it ceases to be a civilized society. Such institutionalized cruelty irreparably damages the nation’s international standing.
Partnerships with this regime — whether strategic, economic, or diplomatic— must be entirely conditional upon the verifiable cessation of its egregious violations of children's rights. Otherwise, a regime that wages war on childhood forfeits its right to stand among free nations.