The head of an organization that supports persecuted Christians worldwide says the most vulnerable population in the world is Christian women.

Open Doors USA recently released its annual World Watch List for religious persecution. David Curry, the group's president and CEO, says the latest data reveals that Christian women in oppressive Islamic cultures are doubly persecuted.

"We're seeing forced marriages, rapes as a strategy of extremists of ISIS, but not just ISIS -- of the Taliban, but not just the Taliban -- in Africa, in Central Asia," he reports.

Curry

Open Doors has talked to repentant sex traffickers who admit that they are payed more money for forced marriages with daughters of Christian pastors.

"This is a strategy to try to shame and to dominate with Sharia law," Curry explains.

"A 14-year-old girl walking to school in northern Nigeria, a tribal area, was kidnapped by an extremist," he tells OneNewsNow as an example. "[The extremist] went to the tribal leader, payed $160 for her, and when the father went to try to retrieve the daughter said, 'You can't have my daughter.' They said, 'You have no standing under this law. She's sold. She's now a Muslim, and she no longer belongs to you.'"

Curry laments this case is unfortunately not unique.

In addition to asking the U.S. government to do something about this, Open Doors USA also covets Christians' prayers for this urgent issue.