Intersection of Gender, Caste, and Religion: Forced Religious Conversion of Hindu Women in Pakistan

ABSTRACT: Forced religious conversions of Hindu women in Pakistan remain critically undertheorized within human rights and minority studies, often obscured by narrow analytical frames that treat religious freedom, gender, and caste as separate domains. This article intervenes by conceptualizing forced conversion as intersectional structural violence, a product of converging theocratic governance, patriarchal authority, and caste-based marginalization. Using an intersectional feminist and postcolonial framework and drawing on an original dataset of 120 documented cases from Sindh province (2019–2024) and ten interviews from Hindu women, the study demonstrates how purportedly "voluntary" conversions are institutionally manufactured through coercive legal practices, clerical mediation, and judicial deference that systematically reframe violence as consent. By centering the experiences of Scheduled Caste Hindu women, the analysis reveals how intersecting identities of gender, religion, and caste produce a distinct vulnerability that formal rights frameworks fail to recognize. The findings challenge prevailing minority-rights paradigms and call for a reimagined approach that addresses the embedded hierarchies enabling gendered religious coercion in postcolonial theocracies.