By Rania Abouzeid / Baghdad Saturday, Mar. 07, 2009
After her husband was killed, Atoor's family tried to sell her to a local Baghdad brothel.
After her husband was killed, Atoor's family tried to sell her to a local Baghdad brothel. "I didn't think it would happen to me," she said. "My mother used to spoil me. Yes, she sold my sisters but she regretted that. I thought that she loved me."
Yuri Kozyrev / Noor for TIME
She goes by "Hinda," but that's not her real name. That's what she's called by the many Iraqi sex traffickers and pimps who contact her several times a week from across the country. They think she is one of them, a peddler of sexual slaves. Little do they know that the stocky, auburn-haired woman is an undercover human rights activist who has been quietly mapping out their murky underworld since 2006.
Related
Stories
* The Vanishing Booksellers of Baghdad
More Related
* Stolen Away
* Baghdad Suicide Bomber Kills 15
* A Female Security Force in Iraq
That underworld is a place where nefarious female pimps hold sway, where impoverished mothers sell their teenage daughters into a sex market that believes females who reach the age of 20 are too old to fetch a good price. The youngest victims, some just 11 and 12, are sold for as much as $30,000, others for as little as $2,000. "The buying and selling of girls in Iraq, it's like the trade in cattle," Hinda says. "I've seen mothers haggle with agents over the price of their daughters." (See pictures of Iraq since the fall of Saddam.)
The trafficking routes are both local and international, most often to Syria, Jordan and the Gulf (primarily the United Arab Emirates). The victims are trafficked illegally on forged passports, or "legally" through forced marriages. A married female, even one as young as 14, raises few suspicions if she's travelling with her "husband." The girls are then divorced upon arrival and put to work. (See Iraq's return to "normalcy".)
Nobody knows exactly how many Iraqi women and children have been sold into sexual slavery since the fall of Saddam Hussein's regime in 2003, and there are no official numbers because of the shadowy nature of the business. Baghdad-based activists like Hinda and others put the number in the tens of thousands. Still, it remains a hidden crime; one that the 2008 US State Department's Trafficking in Persons Report says the Iraqi government is not combating. Baghdad, the report says, "offers no protection services to victims of trafficking, reported no efforts to prevent trafficking in persons and does not acknowledge trafficking to be a problem in the country."
While sexual violence has accompanied warfare for millennia and insecurity always provides opportunities for criminal elements to profit, what is happening in Iraq today reveals how far a once progressive country (relative to its neighbors) has regressed on the issue of women's rights and how ferociously the seams of a traditional Arab society that values female virginity have been ripped apart. Last month Baghdad's minister of women's affairs, Dr. Nawal al-Samarraie, resigned in protest at the lack of resources provided to her office by the government. "The ministry is just an empty post," she told TIME. "Why do I come to the office every day if I don't have any resources?" Yet even Samarraie didn't think sex trafficking was an issue. "It's limited," she says, adding that she believed the girls involved chose to engage in prostitution.
That's a view that infuriates activists like Yanar Mohammed, who heads the Organization of Women's Freedom in Iraq. "Let me take her to the nightclubs of Damascus and show her [trafficked] women by the thousands," she says. To date, the government has not prosecuted any traffickers. For the past year it has also prevented groups like Mohammed's from visiting women's prisons, where they have previously identified victims, many of whom are jailed for acts committed as a result of being trafficked, such as prostitution or possessing forged documents.
That's where Mohammed's group first saw Atoor several years ago, at the Khadimiya Women's Prison in northern Baghdad. Now 18, Atoor married her 19-year-old sweetheart, a policeman called Bilal, when she was 15. Three months later he was dead, killed during one of the many bloody episodes in Iraq's brutal war. After the obligatory four-month mourning period dictated by Islamic Shari'a law, Atoor's mother and two brothers made it clear that they intended to sell her to a brothel close to their home in western Baghdad, just as they'd sold her older twin sisters. Frightened, she told a friend in the police force to raid her home and the nearby brothel. His unit did, and Atoor spent the next two years in prison. She was not charged with anything, but that's how long it took for her to come before a judge and be released. "I wanted to go to prison, I didn't want to be sold," she says. "I didn't think it would happen to me. My mother used to spoil me. Yes, she sold my sisters but she regretted that. I though that she loved me."
Hinda the activist-investigator also knows what's its like to be betrayed by family and considered human merchandise. Raped at 16, she was disowned by her family and left homeless. In many parts of the Arab world, the stigma of compromised chastity, even if it was stolen, is such that victims are at best outcasts and at worst killed for "dishonoring" their family or community. Desperate and destitute, Hinda turned to prostitution.
Now 33, she is using her knowledge of the industry to infiltrate trafficking rings across the country. She gathers information about the victims, where they are from, how much they're sold for and who is buying them. Most often she poses as a buyer for overseas clients, a cover that enables her to snap pictures of victims and claim that they are for her potential customers. She drags out the negotiations for several days, knowing that the victims are usually sold during that period. Playing a disappointed pimp helps keep her cover intact, she says. She can't rescue the girls, but the hope is that when the government decides to take trafficking seriously, her work and that of others will eventually help prosecute offenders and identify victims. She moves away from each trafficking ring as quickly as she can. To linger would be to invite suspicion.
But these days, she says suspicion is getting harder to avoid. She has been beaten before, by the security guards of pimps who suspect her of encouraging young victims to escape or offering them help. But in the past week she has received several death threats, some so frightening and persistent that she penned a farewell letter to her mother. "I'm scared. I'm scared that I'll be killed," she says, wiping away her tears. "But I will not surrender to that fear. If I do it means I've given up and I won't do that. I have to work to stop this."
----------
August 25, 2008 Clip No. 2037
Former Hizbullah Member Rami 'Aleiq: We Used to Have Sex with Syrian Prostitutes after Signing Temporary Marriage Contracts with Them
Following are excerpts from an interview with Rami 'Aleiq, the former head of the Hizbullah Students Union at the American University in Beirut, which aired on Rotana Music TV on August 25, 2008.
Rami 'Aleiq: I was born in 1972, before the Lebanese civil war. As soon as I came into this world, I witnessed forced emigration, great anarchy, war, and weapons. Undoubtedly, this had an impact on me, and left me with question marks and a sense of rejection, even as a child.
[...]
One is raised on certain notions - whether religious, political, cultural, ideological, or social – but later, one realizes that these notions gradually fall apart before one’s eyes.
[...]
Interviewer: When you were young, you were a thug. You stabbed your sister with a knife because she didn't want to wear the hijab. You were 14 years old at the time.
Rami 'Aleiq: Right.
Interviewer: You accused your family of apostasy, saying they were infidels and sinners. Such a criminal worldview in a teenager... Who shaped it for you?
Rami 'Aleiq: First of all, I'm not sure I agree with the word "criminal." This is the product of society. It was shaped by the street. Three things influenced my personality, as they influence the personality of any teenager or child...
Interviewer: Stabbing is not a crime?
Rami 'Aleiq: Taken by itself, it is a crime. But crimes have underlying social circumstances. I was just a child, a minor. [A child is influenced] by the school, the street, and his home. My home was moderate, and so was my school, but the street was overflowing with extremism. The influence of the street culture prevailed.
[...]
Interviewer: Let's return to when you were 13 or 14 years old. That year, you took up arms and became a fighter for Hizbullah. The rifle must have been bigger than you.
Rami 'Aleiq: Right.
Interviewer: Does Hizbullah's army need 13-year-old children in its ranks?
Rami 'Aleiq: To be honest, it is not just Hizbullah. This applies to all the parties. All parties rely on teenagers.
[...]
Archival footage shown
Crowd: We are all with you, Rami! We are all with you, Rami!
Interviewer: That was you?
Rami 'Aleiq: Yes.
Interviewer: And this is you now?
Rami 'Aleiq: Yes.
Interviewer: There is a very great difference.
Rami 'Aleiq: Only in the sense of external appearance. The essence is the same, but the form has changed tremendously. This incident... If I want to sum up the circumstances, this was one of the incidents that changed the course of my life, and changed my beliefs. I was subjected to a savage beating. If you look at the newspapers from that day, you will see what savage beatings we got. People from all sects and political affiliations were standing by me. We shattered the fetters of partisanship. There were members of different parties as well as independents, and we shattered the fetters of political pressures. We decided in advance that we would stick together even if we got beaten up. This was a great thing which caused many of my beliefs to come undone.
[...]
This was somehow connected to the conspiracy theory. We felt that there was an existential threat to the Shiites. This theory still exists.
Interviewer: Who taught you this conspiracy theory?
Rami ‘Aleiq: Nobody did. It was the product of a certain culture, which would instill in your mind the idea that your salvation depended on preserving the narrow [Shiite] framework. This makes you feel that the end absolutely justifies the means.
[...]
Interviewer: After this, you secluded yourself for three days in an old church, you developed a desire to learn about Jesus and Christian teachings, and you performed Christian rituals. Were you baptized with holy water in accordance with Christian rituals?
Rami 'Aleiq: Yes. I was baptized with holy water. I did this out of my own free will, but just to be clear, I did not convert from Islam to Christianity. I kept my Islamic faith, and still do. I added the Christian way to my religious practice, because I distinguish between religion and faith. Faith has no identity, and the goal of religion is to reach faith, to reach God.
[...]
Interviewer: Are you for or against sex before marriage?
Rami 'Aleiq: I'm for it.
Interviewer: But all religions forbid this.
Rami 'Aleiq: I think that the way this issue is viewed is subject to social development, and religions need to be aware of social developments.
[...]
Interviewer: [In your book,] you write: “When I went on trips, I used to go secretly with several young friends to the Al-Marja neighborhood in Damascus. We would go to a hotel in order to have sex with prostitutes for 500 Syrian liras per half hour." To justify this, you write: "None of us would make physical contact with the girl he chose before signing a formal pleasure-marriage contract with her." Isn't marriage meant to be out of pure intentions? Weren't you conning God this way?
Rami 'Aleiq: You're right. Pleasure-marriage means conning God, as well as ourselves. I am against this way of relating to sex and to women.
[...]
This is something that still goes on. It is wrong.
Interviewer: Back then you were an observant Shiite Muslim from Hizbullah, weren't you?
Rami ‘Aleiq nods.
[...]
Interviewer: How did you ever dare to sign a pleasure-marriage contract with a nine-year-old girl?
Rami 'Aleiq: In our culture, in order to be able to touch a girl or a woman, there must be a contract of pleasure-marriage.
[...]
Interviewer: We are talking about a nine-year-old girl...
Rami 'Aleiq: Sure. In Islam, and this is what we were taught, a girl is mature from the age of nine. This is true with regard to Sunnis as well as Shiites. You are focusing on Shia Islam, because I am a Shiite, but according to religious jurisprudence, a girl is mature at the age of nine. This is where we got this idea. I was a child, and so was she, so I was not allowed to touch her, if I didn't form with her the kind of relation that permitted this.
--
ALERT
10-year-old girl gives birth to daughter
By Fareeha Khalid - Apr 6th, 2012 (5 Comments)
70
London: The time when girls should be playing with dolls, a 10-year-old Colombian girl has become one of the world’s youngest mothers by giving birth to a healthy daughter.
The girl, a member of an indigenous tribe called the Wayuu who are based in the La Guajira Peninsula in the north of the country, was 39 weeks pregnant when she underwent a Caesarean section, Daily Mail reported.
It was the first time the pre-teen, from the town of Manaure, had visited a doctor in connection with her pregnancy.
Doctors decided to carry out the risky operation because of her age – and both mother and daughter, who weighed just 5lbs, are said to be ‘doing well’.
In any case the community has remained tight-lipped as to the identity of the father, with some Colombian newspaper speculating it is a 15-year-old boy while others believe it is a 30-year-old man, the mail said.
===
Tribal law protects boy, 15, who impregnated 10-year-old Colombian girl from under-age sex charges
Young mother gave birth to daughter two weeks ago
She is in Wayuu tribe which has own justice system
They refuse to help in under-age sex investigation
By Simon Tomlinson
PUBLISHED: 01:12 GMT, 11 April 2012 | UPDATED: 01:13 GMT, 11 April 2012
Comments (11)
Share
Colombian authorities have been frustrated in their attempts to file criminal charges against the young father of a baby born to a 10-year-old ethnic Wayuu girl.
The Wayuu people have their own justice system and rarely co-operate with agents of the Colombian state in such matters, Maria Gladys Pabon, chief prosecutor in Riohacha, the regional capital, said yesterday.
Under Colombian law, any sexual relations with a child age 14 or younger is a crime punishable by at least nine years in prison.
Frustrated: The Colombian authorities say they are not getting any co-operation from members of the Wayuu tribe as they investigate the young father of this baby born to a 10-year-old girl
Frustrated: The Colombian authorities say they are not getting any co-operation from members of the Wayuu tribe as they investigate the young father of this baby born to a 10-year-old girl
Mother: The girl, a member of the northern indigenous Wayuu tribe in the La Guajira Peninsula, was 39 weeks pregnant when she underwent a Caesarean section
Mother: The girl, a member of the northern indigenous Wayuu tribe in the La Guajira Peninsula, was 39 weeks pregnant when she underwent a Caesarean
But legal and indigenous affairs experts say that under Colombia's 1991 constitution the Wayuu have jurisdiction.
The girl, who cannot be identified by law, gave birth on March 29 via Caesarean section and is one of the youngest mothers on record.
More...
Couple 'had sex with teenage babysitter' leading up to her death the night the husband 'injected girl with meth and heroin in her neck before couple dumped her body in the woods'
But I’m a good looking bloke! Ex-Army officer’s alleged words to woman he is accused of raping
The father, who authorities say is 15, also cannot be identified.
The baby weighed 5.6lbs (2.6kg) and measured 14.5ins (47cm), said Dr Fabio Gonzalez, who delivered the child in a private clinic in Riohacha, on the Guajira peninsula in Colombia's northeast coast.
Dr Gonzalez said 'she barely understood what was happening' at the moment of birth.
He added he had to operate because at that age the pelvis is still growing 'and it's too small for the fetus to pass through the vaginal canal.'
Home: The town of Manaure is in the northern La Guajira Peninsula of Colombia
Home: The town of Manaure is in the northern La Guajira Peninsula of Colombia
He said the mother, who was discharged from the clinic in good health, is also relatively short at 4ft, 7ins (142cm).
When nurses took the newborn to her mother 'it was as if a doll was being given to her,' said Dr Gonzalez.
'She has no idea. She doesn't understand anything and that's normal,' he added.
The doctor said it was not the first time he had delivered the baby of a 10-year-old girl. He said he had a similar case last year.
In the latest case, the girl's parents took her to the clinic from their hometown of Manuare.
Shame: The birth has been painful for the Wayuu (file picture), who mostly live on the Colombia-Venezuela border. But they do not believe she was raped
Shame: The birth has been painful for the Wayuu (file picture), who mostly live on the Colombia-Venezuela border. But they do not believe she was raped
A Wayuu tribal leader, Rosa Iguaran, said the parents were refusing to speak to the media out of shame.
She said the incident was also painful for the Wayuu, who number about 350,000 and mostly live in the Colombia-Venezuela border region.
They don't consider that the girl was raped but rather that the baby was conceived in consensual sex.
It will be up to the parents of both the boy and girl to decide whether the two should be married and what the boy's family owes the girl's family, whether it be 'necklaces, cows, goats, whatever the family agrees on,' said Iguaran.
Pabon, the prosecutor, said the family of the girl has refused to co-operate with her in her investigation.
She said she would not seek to arrest the father of the newborn without speaking with Wayuu leaders.
Colombian constitutional law experts say such cases are always very complicated.
Former Constitutional Court magistrate Rodrigo Escobar said that 'what the Indians can't do is submit a defendant to degrading treatment or the death penalty.'
The world's youngest mother in a medically documented case was Lina Medina of Peru, who in 1939 produced an infant at the age of five years, eight months, according to the Guinness Book of Records.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2128007/Tribal-law-protects-boy-15-impregnated-10-year-old-Colombian-girl.html#ixzz1vK0VqnMQ
===
No comments:
Post a Comment