How Christian Girls Become Muslim Wives in Egypt

Comprising about 10% of Egypt’s current population, Copts are the largest Christian community in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region.

Among the earliest of all Christians, the Copts inhabited Egypt for many centuries before the Islamic conquest in the 7th century. Over subsequent centuries, they have faced various forms of persecution. In recent decades, a phenomenon has emerged in which Coptic women disappear without a trace.

The Egyptian government contends there is no large-scale problem, but instead a few isolated incidents related to family disputes when a Christian girl runs off to be with a Muslim man.

Others have contended, though, that there has been an ongoing pattern of kidnappings targeting Coptic females.

A July 2012 Congressional hearing mentioned that abductions of Coptic females increased following the 2011 Egyptian revolution.

“The problem is persistent and significant, but undercounted,” said Lindsay Rodriguez, director of development and advocacy for the organization Coptic Solidarity.

Solid statistics about such kidnappings are hard to come by. Most cases likely go unreported, as the victims and their relatives are inclined to conceal the issue. Or the local authorities might not allow the family to make a report.

Also, family members who protest too much about their missing daughters “are at times imprisoned” or otherwise “threatened into silence,” Rodriguez said.

Kidnappers use various abduction methods. Some involve masked men dragging a girl into a vehicle. Other kidnappings use less manpower but involve spraying powerful anesthetics on the targeted girl to subdue her quickly. But most kidnappings are more subtle.

“The blunt force attacking is not common these days,” said “Cyril,” a Copt born and raised in Egypt. He added that initial contact is typically made on social media. Or the targeted girl’s non-Christian acquaintances might set up something.

Most of the kidnappings Cyril knows of involve females in the age range of 16 to 21 years.

Victims are often “targeted due to being perceived as more vulnerable,” Rodriguez said. Such vulnerability could be due to family financial troubles or mental or physical health issues.

One recent such case involved a 17-year-old Coptic girl with intellectual impairment who, after her kidnapping, appeared on video in Islamic dress with a woman in the background prompting her to denounce her Christian family as infidels.

Rodriguez said that deception, grooming, and social media manipulation are the most common kidnapping methods.

Many cases involve social media or text message communication in which the girl might reveal something — either verbally or through photos — that might be considered dishonorable conduct for someone from a highly traditional background. Once the girl becomes compromised in this way, she becomes far easier to manipulate.

It is also common practice that, following the abduction, accomplices will take pictures of the girl engaged in coerced sexual activity. Such photos are kept as evidence of the girl’s “misbehavior” to blackmail her into changing her religion. In this way, she will come to the Islamic faith.

In some cases, official documents are changed as soon as the day after the kidnapping to show that the girl has officially “converted” to Islam.

Another frequent tactic is to coerce victims into signing an Islamization certificate. They might even appear on video bearing their signed certificate and announcing their new status to make the conversion official and incontrovertible.

“These videos of women claiming to have converted of their own free will and married for love while wearing a head covering have no validity,” Rodriguez said. “It’s an extremely inept and poor attempt to legitimize coerced actions.”

Rodriguez added that, although some recent victims have been sent abroad, the available evidence suggests that most recent victims have remained in Egypt.

“Abraham,” a member of the Coptic community who now lives abroad but often goes back to Egypt, said the main goal of these kidnappings “is to reduce the Christian population and promote Islam by pretending that the woman chose Islam on her own free will.”

“They end up as Muslim wives by force,” Abraham said of the kidnapping victims. He is not aware of any prosecutions against the kidnappers. “Authorities are complicit, because they often do very little or nothing,” he added.

Cyril mentioned several reasons for these kidnappings. One is the price of a bride. “Marriage nowadays in Egypt is pretty expensive,” he said. But a kidnapped bride “is completely free.”

Other reasons are less about money and more about power and control. A kidnapped bride basically becomes “someone without a family,” Cyril said. The husband “can beat and abuse her as much as he wishes, and nobody will be able to interfere.”

There are also spiritual benefits. The husband “is going to enter the Islamic paradise because he made a Christian convert [to Islam],” Cyril added.

On a societal level, these kidnappings are a way to express “dominance over the [Christian] minority” and communicate that “we can take away your child and you can do nothing,” Cyril said.

He added that, in some cases, authorities return a girl to “look like a hero and gain support from the naive.”

“Returns [of kidnapping victims] do happen, but they appear to be the exception rather than the rule,” Rodriguez said.

It’s worth noting that there are at least some cases of a Coptic female willingly entering a relationship with a Muslim man (The reverse situation is illegal and even rumors of it can bring violence to the Christian man or his family.), and then running off with him and voluntarily converting to Islam.

But the number of disappearances of Coptic females who immediately and forever sever ties with family and friends points to something more sinister and less voluntary.

Rodriguez said her organization is not aware of even one case in which perpetrators were held accountable.

Cyril agreed that there are basically no legal consequences for the perpetrators. Egyptian authorities “have done nothing” about this issue, he said. There is basically no hope for justice in these situations. For families of victims, the “highest hope is getting their girls back.”

Rodriguez said, “It is reasonable to conclude that a substantial segment of society tolerates or justifies” these kidnappings.

Abraham thinks that although “most modern Muslims disapprove” of these kidnappings, “they are not motivated enough to do anything about it.”

“And there are many who approve,” he added.

Story by R. Cavanaugh

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