A 22-year-old Christian mother-of-two, Shazia, has managed to escape from her Muslim kidnappers after a year.

Shazia got married labourer Saddique Masih eight years ago. They were so poor they were not able to see to their daily needs.

Therefore, Shazia decided to find some work too. She got a job in a biscuit factory where after some time a Muslim boy, Rakha, started taking interest in her. Although Shazia she was married with two daughters, he kept following her. One day he even purposed Shazia for marriage. Shazia started to avoid him but Rakha never gave up and at last influenced her.

One day Rakha persuaded her to elope with him to Karachi where they would get a new flat and lead a happy married life. According to Shazia she refused to go with Rakha because of the difference in their faiths and her family life.

In June 2015, when Shazia was on her way to work, she was kidnapped by Rakha two of his friends. They took Shazia to Karachi and kept her at an unknown place. Rakha, and his friends raped her and even asked her to work as a prostitute to make money for their daily expenses.

Shazia refused to be a prostitute and begged Rakha to send her back home for her daughters. But it all fell on their deaf ears. At last after a year, Shazia got a chance to escape, and run away from their detention. Karachi is about 1300 km from Lahore and she had no money to travel back home. For many days and nights she was on the roads and fed herself by collecting empty plastic bottles and selling them. But unfortunately her kidnappers found her and took her with them again.

They took all the money she had and forced her into prostitution but when she resisted and refused they dropped acid in her throat and on some parts of her body too.

The acid damaged and burned her stomach and throat; and while she was unconscious the kidnappers threw her in the street. A man passing by found Shazia in critical condition and took her to the hospital immediately. In this critical situation the hospital refused to admit her as there was not enough space for such patients and referred her to another hospital. After two or three hospitals she was referred to the hospitals in Lahore for better treatment.

She was treated for more than a month in hospital where she met someone she knows and sent a message to her family.

Shazia is recovering and will hopefully one day join her family again. Shazia is not the only person who become a victim because of her poverty and Christian faith, but there are many Christians who are vulnerable to being kidnaped, raped and forcibly converted to Islam because of their Christian faith.