A Christian persecution watchdog group has
created a new matrimonial dating website that
seeks to change the dynamic of arranged
marriages and allow Christian refugees in the
Asian subcontinent to find a “romantic
pathway” to escape persecution.
In response to numerous inquiries from
Pakistani Christians seeking help to find their
sons and daughters the perfect suitors for
marriage in the West who will preserve families’
Christian culture, the British Pakistani Christian
Association has launched a new dating website that offers a certain level of protection by
allowing parents to investigate the
backgrounds of potential suitors listed on the
website.
As the No. 1 style of marriage among Christians
in Pakistan and Pakistani Christians in Western
nations is arranged marriage, Shaadi4Christians.com, which went live in late May, aims to give sons and daughters more
insight into who their parents are trying to
match them up with.
“Often the procedure for an arranged marriage
is for one parent to talk to another set of
parents without any meeting of the children,”
BPCA President Wilson Chowdhry told The
Christian Post, recalling that his wife’s parents
wouldn’t even let him come near their daughter until after their arranged
engagement.
“There were so many questions I had about
my wife [before our engagement] and a site
like this provides more opportunity for a more
strategic overview, especially for that potential
husband or wife that will be the most slighted
in the whole process,” he added. “The parents just trust God. It is the suitors that are the most
terrified in these situations.”
Chowdhry explained that the website will give
advice on how to conduct initial meetings and
suggested meeting places. Additionally, the site
will send messages to inspire a “stronger focus
on Christian conduct within romantic
relationships.”
But unlike other dating and matrimonial sites
like Shaadi.com, Shaadi4Christians will also give
parents their own access to the site through a
separate user account. Through the website,
parents can check to make sure that the
Christian suitors, especially those in the West, are actually Christians, involved in the church
and live a cultural lifestyle that is similar to their
own.
Chowdhry said that a reoccurring problem for
many Christian families from Pakistan, India,
and other South Asian countries who have
arranged for their sons or daughters to be
married to suitors in America or the United
Kingdom through other websites is that they have often been mislead by suitors.
“We have heard of this before, especially when
we are talking about Pakistani Christians. On
Facebook, for instance, when people are
finding potential partners, we have heard some
very awful stories about how girls have been
married and when they went to America or Britain and they found that the experience is
not what it was expected to be and the
husband isn’t actually Christian,” Chowdhry
said. “It hasn’t happened once. It has
happened several times.”
As the website allows suitors to list the
churches they attend and their roles with
church ministries, the website will give the
parents and suitors the ability to request
church background checks on potential
suitors.
Upon request the of the parent or suitor,
Chowdhry said that vetted website officials will
call the churches and pastors to verify that the
suitors attend those churches and are actually
involved in helping the ministries.
“What we are finding with Pakistani Christians
is that the first priority is that the potential
partner is a Christian and can prove a
commitment to God,” Chowdhry told CP. “We
get requests directly from parents to check
with churches that are being named. We will do that, especially if someone from Britain or
America wants to contact the daughter in
Pakistan. We will check that it is a real church
and that the pastor is genuine and that the
contact details they provided are the correct
ones and not made up. We have officers on the ground who are equipped to do that.”
Shaadi4Christians is not exclusively for
arranged marriages. The site will also help
Christians who are looking for marriage to find
their life partners. Although the website is
focused toward Christians in Pakistan, India
and other South Asian nations, the site is open to Christians of all cultures and countries to
join.
“This is not just for arranged marriages. If
people want to go on there and chat, they can.
Also, they can use this for engaging with
potential partners directly,” Chowdhry
explained. “It will be open for Western or white
Christians but this is primarily a Pakistani-Asian Christian matrimonial site.”
As persecuted Christians seeking asylum in
Thailand, Sri Lanka, Myanmar and other South
Asian nations continue to face hardships
associated with their dire situations, Chowdhry
said he would ultimately like to see persecuted
Christian refugees use the site to find suitors in the West who can save them from lives of
despair.
“I am sure that refugees in Thailand are going
to want to use this because they are suffering
so much,” he said. “One of the green linings of
this whole system is that a young doctor
looking for marriage can be seen by a potential
suitor in America and they can, in essence, find very romantic way to escape persecution.”
“For me, that would be just a highlight of how
this system could be a positive mechanism for
protecting the Christian asylum seekers,” he
continued. “It would be a Romantic escape
from persecution.”
So far, only 40 people have registered for
Shaadi4Christians. But for the next six months,
Chowdhry said that the website service will be
free for all who register. After the free trial is over, users will have to pay about £5 or $7.12
per month.
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