Rebecca Duffett spoke with Sohail Johnson

Rebecca: Could you tell us a bit more about the work that you do?

Sohail: I, along with my wonderful team, we are visiting Christian prisoners in different prisons every week to show God's love and to share the word of God among the Christian prisoners. We are also looking after the families of some Christian prisoners just because they're Christian and blasphemy victims.

We are providing the skill development programme to the marginalised and the girls who are supposed to be slaves and working on the bricklands and they are making bricks all day. For them we gave them the opportunity to join the centres to get some skills. They are also providing a Sunday school to the brickland children. In this way we are helping them and we are serving the persecuted body of Christ.

Rebecca: What is the role of women and how are they treated generally in society?

Sohail: The Pakistani Christian or Muslim woman do not have equal rights there and they are struggling and have less opportunity to get jobs. Pakistani society is a male dominating society; everywhere the male try to snub their rights and they have no voice as I have seen here.

Rebecca: What would you say the Christians greatest needs are?

Sohail: The Christians greatest need first of all is education. If people will be educated they can respond to challenges in the country. The second is that the people should prosper. They need small business because they're doing a small kind of jobs like slaves on the bricklands; they're getting small salaries and little bits to get their food. If people have their own business, they have their education freely and people can overcome their worries there today no problems.

Rebecca: Do Christians not have as much access to education?

Sohail: The poor people's courses and education is different. There is the English medium and the private and the government. You can see the different kind of education they are getting in Pakistan. The poor and poorest people they are not able to pay school fees and all expenses of education. The government provide free education that is not a good standard and sometime we know that schools are closed for the whole year.

On the other side, the people who can afford to get education are getting the international level standards education. After education I can say that the people who have the high education, they will get jobs. There they can get the good salaries. The people who do not have international standard education they cannot get the good job.

There are also Islamic institutes. They are given their own education, so they are a different kind of school system and education system.

Christians are not able to get the good education in Pakistan. It's very hard to get because they cannot spend money to get education.

Rebecca: What about health care?

Sohail: We have some government hospitals and we have some private hospitals. In the government sector when you go there to have treatment or medicine there's an abundance of people there. It is very hard to get medicine and it is very hard to get the doctor. Out there you can find big queues and rush and problems and stress there. It is very hard to get free medicine or treatment in Pakistan. On the other hand there are many private hospitals and clinics, but the doctor's fees and check up fees, medicines, you cannot afford these things. The poor people of Pakistan they cannot afford it. There is no good health programme at the moment.