Opinion poll: Should forced conversions of under aged children be outlawed?

Technorati tags: Islam, Conversion, Forced Conversion, Malaysia, Religion

Yes, folks, another case of under aged children forced to convert to Islam, because one of their parents converted. This story, according to The Nut Graph, dominated the Tamil press last week.

The following Malaysiakini.tv segment (via YouTube), provides a backgrounder to the story.

The video reveals that poor non-Muslims are allegedly being enticed to embrace Islam for monetary gain. If this is true, it makes Walski wonder: why this obsession to lure someone into your faith, for all the wrong reasons? Something to think about, for sure, and perhaps something that Walski will delve into further in another post.

In the meantime, what are your thoughts on this – should forced conversions of under aged children be outlawed?  
(the opinion poll, and more, in the full post)

And that is the topic of the current opinion poll that Walski’s just put up.

Putting aside the sad reality of what Malaysia has become aside for a moment, Walski looks at this purely from a humanistic viewpoint. He thinks that the decision of which religion to follow, in cases of divorce via conversion, should be left with the children once they are of legal age to decide. In Malaysia, that age happens to be 18. Personally, Walski is of the opinion that any other option would not be fair to all parties.

Coming back to the sordid reality of our 1 Malaysia, what’s fair to all parties brings us to an impasse because of our two-headed Hydra of a legal system, when it comes to matters of family disputes, such as the one faced by M. Indra Gandhi, her estranged husband Mohd Ridzuan Abdullah (formerly Pathmanathan), and their 3 children.

According to the Nut Graph article quoted above, what’s even more bizarre is the fact that the children were not even present when their conversion took place – all Mohd Ridzuan had to do was produce the children's birth certificates, and… Hey Presto! they were all converted.

Because of the two court system’s jurisdictional non-coverage in matters such as these, coupled with a government that doesn’t have the scrotal gumption to tackle the problem fairly, cases such as these continue to happen, and after a while simply disappear from the public’s attention span. Until the next time it happens, that is. Problem not solved.

The poll will be up for about one week, beginning today until midnight on Thursday, April 30th. As with the previous polls, if you’re blogging on the Blogger platform, Walski provides you with the opportunity to feature the poll on your blog (just click the “Add to Blogger” icon below the poll).