 [PJMedia] For over a decade, Pakistain has benefited from privileged access (through reduced or zero duties) to the roughly 450 million consumers of the EU market. In this framework, Pakistain’s products enter the EU market with 0% duties across approximately 2/3 of all EU tariff lines.
From 2014 to 2022, Pakistain’s exports to the EU almost doubled: they went from 8.3 billion EUR to almost 15 billion EUR.
In exchange, Pakistain pledged to sign and implement 27 international treaties regarding labor rights, good governance, and human rights
...which are often intentionally defined so widely as to be meaningless...
. This scheme granted Pakistain trade privileges in exchange for human rights progress. It is known as the European Union
...the successor to the Holy Roman Empire, only without the Hapsburgs and the nifty uniforms and the dancing...
's Generalized Scheme of Preferences Plus (GSP+).
Since the agreement’s inception, Pakistain has failed to demonstrate tangible progress regarding the implementation of international human rights standards. The country’s Christians suffer from the worst human rights abuses and are most negatively impacted by this failure.
Christians compose less than 2% of Pakistain's population, enduring severe systemic and societal persecution. They frequently face mob violence, deadly blasphemy
...the act of insulting or showing contempt or lack of reverence to a deity, or sacred objects, or toward something considered sacred or inviolable. Some religions consider it to be a crime. In Pakistain you can commit blasphemy by looking cross-eyed at a Koran...
laws, economic exclusion or exploitation, abductions, rapes, and forced conversions. The EU, however, keeps rewarding the country with a massive economic lifeline.
Pakistain has been a significant beneficiary of the European Union's GSP+ since 2014. They are granted duty-free or preferential tariff access to the EU market for over 66% of its tariff lines.
However,
we can't all be heroes. Somebody has to sit on the curb and applaud when they go by...
Pakistain's government continues to abuse the EU's generosity as well as the basic human rights of its minority citizens. On May 12, a married Moslem kidnapped a 14-year-old girl, her father and his attorney said. The man forcibly converted her to Islam and married her, exploiting her medical and mental health vulnerabilities to sexually abuse her.
Her father, Abbas Masih, is a daily wage laborer and member of a local Brethren church in Lahore’s Gulbahar Colony. Masih told Christian Daily International-Morning Star News that his daughter, Nisha Bibi, disappeared while working as a domestic helper at a Moslem household.
Legal, religious and cultural norms reinforce extreme gender inequality in Pakistain, with Christian girls vulnerable to abduction, forced conversion and marriage. International Christian Concern reported on May 13:
Each year in Pakistain, roughly 1,000 maiden of tender yearss — many of whom are Christians — are kidnapped from their homes.
"These girls are often found months later, after they’ve been forced to convert to Islam and marry older Moslem men. When a girl’s parents attempt to claim their daughter in court, they are often unable to provide a birth certificate to prove that she is underage. As a result, the judge often grants the man custody of the girl, denying the parents any chance of seeing their daughter again.
While this reality is nothing new in Pakistain, stories of girls in these situations are increasingly coming to light.
The organization Open Doors further notes:
Christian women and girls in Pakistain face severe gender-specific persecution. Christian girls are kidnapped, raped, and forced to convert and "marry" their abductor, with victims as young as seven, including girls with disabilities. Families often never see them again, while the police rarely act and the courts frequently fail victims. Survivors endure shame, PTSD, and social stigma in Pakistain’s honor-based culture. Christian women are also targeted with acid attacks, workplace harassment, blasphemy allegations, and honor killings. Many remain trapped in debt-bonded labor, such as brick-kilns, where they face additional sexual violence and exploitation.
Despite all these violations and more, Pakistain remains a major beneficiary of the trading opportunities offered by the GSP. The country continues to fail in all those same fields in which it has pledged to make progress (human and labor rights, as well as good governance), particularly when minorities are involved.
Systemic failures in protecting Christian labor rights in Pakistain are most evident within the sanitation sector. Systemic discrimination, lack of safety gear, and exploitative working conditions disproportionately affect the Christian minority.
Christians are frequently restricted to hazardous or degrading manual labor. They make up an estimated 80% of sanitation and sewer workers, largely excluded from better-paying professional fields.
This month, for instance, it was reported that at least six Christian sanitation workers died in sewer-related accidents in April and May 2026 in Punjab
...1. Little Orphan Annie's bodyguard
2. A province of Pakistain ruled by one of the Sharif brothers
3. A province of India. It is majority (60 percent) Sikh and Hindoo (37 percent), which means it has relatively few Moslem riots
....
. Their deaths were reportedly due to the Punjab Water and Sanitation Authority’s (PWSA) negligence. Rights groups blamed PWSA for failing to ensure safe workplace conditions and safety for sanitation workers, mostly Christians. Rights groups said that workers were deployed into toxic sewer systems without any proper safety and protection gear.
These deaths have also raised concerns over a pattern of fatal workplace conditions and systemic discrimination against Christian sanitation workers.
Meanwhile,
...back at the laboratory, Igor and Oleg were discussing what the quickest way might be to deal with the monster...
many Christian families are trapped in cycles of debt and indentured servitude, particularly in rural areas and the brick kilns industry.
Pakistain’s volatile politics, weak civilian governance, as well as military control and dominance over the country's administration, have left minorities additionally vulnerable. 96% of the population is Moslem, the majority of whom follow the Sunni tradition. According to the constitution, the right to free speech is subject to the restrictions necessary to ensure "the glory of Islam."
Blasphemy is punishable by death. Blasphemy laws are increasingly used to disproportionately target Christians. The allegations are used as a pretext for settling scores, for the entrapment of Christians, or for economic reasons, including forced evictions.
Some people have been lynched even before their trial cases began: accusations frequently incite violent mostly peaceful mobs. These crowds often ransack and burn Christian homes, schools, and places of worship with little to no consequence. This was illustrated by the 2023 Jaranwala attacks in which over 25 churches were attacked and homes destroyed. Three years on, Pakistain's government has been unwilling to prosecute those involved.
District courts across Pakistain, particularly in regions like Punjab, continue to issue death sentence
 ...the barbaric practice of sentencing a murderer to be punished for as long as his/her/its victim is dead...
s in digital blasphemy cases. For instance, a Sahiwal district court issued capital punishments in several recent (2025-2026) instances for online sacrilege.
Other high-profile convictions include a 22-year-old man sentenced to death in 2024 and a 17-year-old sentenced to life in prison by a Punjab province court over alleged blasphemous content on WhatsApp.
The United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) notes that:
The Pak government’s systematic enforcement of blasphemy laws severely restricts freedom of religion or belief for all citizens, particularly targeting Ahmadiyya Moslems. Authorities’ failure to address mob violence associated with blasphemy accusations, as well as the forced conversions to Islam of individuals from religious minorities—including Christians, Hindus, and Sikhs—continues to reinforce a climate of fear and religious discrimination.
Meanwhile,
...back at the laboratory, Igor and Oleg were discussing what the quickest way might be to deal with the monster...
a hopeful sign is that the EU's updated GSP+ regulation (approved on April 28, 2026) expands the number of required international conventions from 27 to 32. This will be effective starting on January 1, 2027.
Pakistain is already under scrutiny for human rights violations and slow legal reforms. It will likely face increased challenges in meeting these expanded standards. With a two-year transition period, Pakistain will remain under renewed scrutiny under the new action plan to retain benefits, risking trade losses if it fails to comply.
Since at least 2014, the EU has enabled Pakistain's severe abuses of human rights standards. Observers continue to warn the EU of consequences and call for significant change. The organization "Human Rights Without Frontiers (HRWF)," for example, refers to the GSP+ scheme as "the bad deal between the EU and Pakistain," and adds: "The GSP+ should be suspended as long as there is no substantial human rights progress." Only then will Pakistain's regime be obliged to treat its citizens with respect and dignity.
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