UK must prioritise persecuted Christians and religious minorities for taxpayer-funded aid, says Catholic charity

John Pontifex • October 22, 2024

Imagine the scene: one summer’s evening, a young mother’s peace is shattered when her brother bursts in, pursued by an angry mob.

Accusing the brother of a crime he has not committed, the militants tell the family that if they don’t leave the house they will be burnt alive.

The young mother, Sadia Sahill, is forced outside, protesting that her eight-month-old baby is still inside and only at the last minute is her husband able to persuade the militants to let him extract the infant.

On that day – 16th August 2023 – 26 churches and chapels were torched as were more than 80 homes belonging to Christians.

The atrocity, in Jaranwala, Pakistan, is highlighted in a new report released 22 October by Catholic charity Aid to the Church in Need (ACN) that shows how over the past two years there has been yet another surge in violence and oppression against Christians around the world.

The report, Persecuted and Forgotten? A Report on Christians oppressed for their Faith 2022-24, concludes that in more than 60 per cent of the countries surveyed human rights violations targeting Christians have increased since the previous period under review (2020-22).

The report comes against a backdrop of growing evidence that Christians are the most persecuted faith community, both in terms of the number of people and the number of countries affected.

As referenced in Persecuted and Forgotten?, the most recent Pew Research Center recent data, covering 2021, showed that Christians suffered religiously-motivated harassment in 160 countries; more than any other faith group.

Speaking to the Vatican diplomatic corps in January 2023, Pope Francis stated that one in seven Christians worldwide are oppressed for their faith – about 300 million people.

Such statistics pose a direct challenge to governments – not least in the UK – which have been accused of either downplaying the severity of Christian persecution or failing to match words of compassion with a commitment to act decisively to help those whose lives are turned upside down by religious hatred.

And that is why ACN (UK) has not only launched the Persecuted and Forgotten? report but has launched an open letter advocacy campaign calling for the UK to prioritise persecuted Christians and other religious minorities for taxpayer-funded foreign aid.

By calling for persecuted Christians and others to receive more Overseas Development Aid (ODA), the open letter responds to drivers of persecution identified in the report.

As well as setting out the scale of human rights violations against Christians, Persecuted and Forgotten? probes behind the headline figures to reveal the main causes of the distressing trend.

The Jaranwala atrocity, mentioned at the start, provides a prime example of one such dominant factor which is making persecution of Christians so much worse. Triggered by a false accusation of blasphemy against the Prophet of Islam, the extremists behind the violence weaponised legislation to justify oppression and violence against Christians and other minorities.

By invoking Pakistan’s blasphemy laws, where insulting the Prophet carries the death sentence, the Islamists set out to demonise Christians not only as aliens of the state but as flagrant violators of legislation deemed necessary to safeguard the nation’s religious identity.

Persecuted and Forgotten? concludes, though, that invoking the law is not the only way Christians have been increasingly targeted as enemies of the state. Authoritarian regimes, including those in China, Eritrea and Iran have toughened up anti-Christian policies for reasons either to do with religious nationalism or state secularisation/communism.

The repeated arrests of China’s Bishop Peter Shao Zhumin of Wenzhou between mid-December 2023 and early January 2024 were part of the authorities’ clampdown on unregistered religious leaders and activities.

Bishop Zhumin had refused to join the Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association and had not cooperated with CCPA demands to transfer priests and divide parishes.

Religious organisations are required to back the association’s drive towards “sinicisation” of all faith activity including organising patriotic education for the faithful.

In India, the persecution of Christians has grown amid state and non-state campaigns which have presented the Church as a threat to the Hindu character of the nation.

This played a key part in attacks on faithful which reportedly rose from 599 in 2022 to 720 the following year, of which 287 were in Uttar Pradesh state alone.

A main finding of Persecuted and Forgotten? is that the strategic focal point of trans-national Islamist militant violence and other oppression against Christians has shifted decisively from the Middle East to Africa.

No longer are Daesh (ISIS) and other Islamist militant groups the genocidal threat they once were in Iraq and Syria.

Rather, in parts of Burkina Faso in West Africa as well as northern Mozambique in the east of the continent, Christians have become a principal target of large-scale Islamist attacks.

Be it in Nigeria, Egypt or in Pakistan, the report examined a growing body of evidence showing how Christian and other minority faith women and girls were increasingly the victims of abduction, sexual violence, forced marriage and forced conversion.

Although by its very nature, such cases are hard to track, anecdotal reports repeatedly showed that Christians were seen as easy targets for predatory individuals using the cover of winning converts for the majority religion to mask sexual conquest and coercion.

The targeting of vulnerable girls and women, mass displacement caused by acts of violence, discrimination in schools and the workplace, are just some of the ways in which Christians and other minorities are forced into poverty and suffer other forms of disempowerment because of their faith.

And that is why they deserve to be at the front of the queue for taxpayer-funded UK foreign aid.

In 2022, the previous Government published its 10-year strategy for international development, and set out a number of priorities – including reliable investment, empowering women and girls, humanitarian assistance, climate change, biodiversity and global heath.

However, nowhere are religious minorities mentioned.

This is despite strong evidence showing religious persecution to be a core driver of other problems the Government’s strategy seeks to address, including poverty, discrimination and the disenfranchisement of women and girls.

For this reason, as well as launching the Persecuted and Forgotten? report, Aid to the Church in Need (UK) has launched an advocacy campaign calling for signatures in support of an open letter addressed to the Foreign Secretary.

The ACN open letter calls for two changes in UK Government policy:

Firstly: Making persecuted Christians and other religious minorities a priority within the UK’s international development plan.

Secondly: Publishing a strategy specifically about religious freedom outlining effective means to channel aid to victims of religious discrimination and persecution.

Last year, more than 25 per cent of all UK overseas aid was spent on asylum costs in the UK – up nearly 10 per cent on 2022.

At a time of increased oppression of Christians and other religious minorities – victimised despite their commitment to peace and the rule of law – ACN’s open letter campaign demands that we provide them with the help they need.

The campaign challenges the prevailing misconception that Christians are mainly privileged white Westerners, and that religious differences play little or no role in terms of factors determining poverty and discrimination.

ACN’s Persecuted and Forgotten? and its open letter to the Foreign Secretary advocacy campaign are aimed specifically at bringing help and hope to the likes of Saima, the young mother from Jaranwala in Pakistan who nearly lost her baby daughter to Islamist militants.

As #RedWednesday 2024 approaches on 20th November, both Persecuted and Forgotten? and ACN’s open letter are intended to both shine a light on the reality today for suffering Christians and provide a beacon of hope so that they get the help they need.

RELATED: Lord Alton speaks up for 10 Chinese bishops and underground Church persecuted by CCP

Photo: A mother comforts her child after the August 2023 anti-Christian riots in Jaranwala, Pakistan. (Photo courtesy ACN.)

John Pontifex is Head of Press & Public Affairs, Aid to the Church in Need (UK).

To order a copy Persecuted and Forgotten? A Report on Christians oppressed for their Faith 2022-24 visit acnuk.org. To sign the ACN Open Letter to the Foreign Secretary calling for persecuted Christians and other religious minorities to be made priority recipients of tax-payer funded UK Government Overseas Development Aid (ODA) visit here.