Not a few Pakistani Christian parents are seeking perfect matches in the West for their sons and daughters, but they want to make sure that their families' Christian culture will still be preserved even after their children are married off.
To help these parents, the Christian persecution watchdog group British Pakistani Christian Association (BPCA) created the matrimonial dating website called Shaadi4Christians, which hopes to serve as a "romantic pathway" to escape persecution.
Through the website, concerned parents can check potential suitors online and determine whether their backgrounds will be a good fit for their sons or daughters.
"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 tells The Christian Post. He himself knew little of his wife even after they got engaged. His wife's parents pulled out all the stops just to make sure he would not come near their daughter until their wedding day.
"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 says. "The parents just trust God. The suitors are the most terrified in these situations."
The website will also help both parties conduct initial meetings and suggest ideal meeting places. As a precursor to marriage, the site will even send messages to the suitor and the bride to inspire a "stronger focus on Christian conduct within romantic relationships."
Chowdhry also says that many Christian families from Pakistan, India, and other South Asian countries have arranged for their sons or daughters to be married to suitors in America or the United Kingdom only to be shocked with the truth when their children have finally been married off.
"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 says. "It hasn't happened once. It has happened several times."
With Shaadi4Christians, parents can at least get a better background check on Christian suitors in the West and feel assured that their sons and daughters will be married off to genuine Christians.
Chowdhry added: "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 [a] very romantic way to escape persecution."
