PRIVATE Photographers

With 1.6% of the population and some 3 million believers, the Christian minority in Pakistan is the second largest religious minority after Hindus. After the partition of the Indian subcontinent and with the Zia-ul-Haq’s islamization of Pakistan, a forced implementation of Islamic Sharia law marginalized the Christian minority and caused intense persecution.

Nowadays, the majority of Christian believers coming from rural areas across the country, live in ghettos or “colonies” in the big cities. As a consequence of the cast system legacy, the majority of Christians work in the cleaning and sanitary field, as sort of untouchables.

(Michele Borzoni | Christian minority in Pakistan, PRIVATE 53 - Hope, pages 50-53)