A Bangladeshi woman, Khainur, and her daughter Arifa have been brutally beaten by her husband following their conversion to Christianity. The beatings began when it emerged that their son, Jahirul, had became a Christian. Jahirul had moved to Sydney, Australia, in 2006 to attend university. In June 2009, his father started to pressure him to marry a Muslim woman, a plan the son rejected because of his Christian faith.

When the husband heard this, he became very angry and began to beat Khainur, accusing her of allowing their son to study abroad. She was also forbidden to talk to their son. Neither her relatives nor the police would help her, but Jahirul urged his mother to contact the Bangladeshi pastor who had first set him on the path to knowing Christ. The pastor became her only support. Before long, Khainur and her eldest daughter Arifa had also “found the love of Christ”.

In September, Khainur told her husband that she too had converted to Christianity. Enraged, he tied his wife and daughter up and brutally beat them in front of the younger daughters. He also burned a copy of the Bible, threatening to give them “similar treatment”. Arifa says, “We pray regularly that one day my father might find the love of Christ. I forgive him even if he beat me like a dog. I am not afraid to be burnt by my father as he did with the Bible.”