So you’ve just popped out of town for the day on an errand. And when you get back, everyone has gone. Your wife, your kids, your nephews and nieces, your friends, your customers: they’ve all been kidnapped and dragged off to a place so barbarically horrible that really they’d be better off dead.
Your daughter, for example. If she’s nine or over then she’s considered fair game. She’ll be sold as a slave in the market to the highest bidder — as ever, there’s a premium for blonde hair or blue eyes— after which her new owner can use her as she wishes.
The very least she can expect is to have to spend her every day in the most restrictive clothing anywhere in the Muslim world. Her hands must be hidden by black gloves, her eyes invisible behind three veils. On those rare occasions when she is allowed outside, she must stumble as if half blind. If she accidentally breaks these rules she’ll be beaten; if she raises her voice she’ll be beaten; if she disobeys an order she’ll be beaten — usually by the al-Khansaa Brigade, a special female police group of brutal enforcers, mostly foreign recruits determined to prove their loyalty by being extra zealous.
Really, though, these may be the least of her worries. One 18-year-old escapee reports what happened when she was bought by a self-styled ‘sheikh’: first, her owner raped her; then his six bodyguards — through the night till morning (‘they were not raping me in a gentle way, but with force and fast movement, without care’); then, the driver gave her to 12 men. ‘They did everything to me. I’m still in pain.’
Even now that this (relatively) lucky girl is back safe with her family, the stink of those men is still with her and no matter how hard she tries she knows she’ll never get rid of it.
Comments
Join the debate for just £1 a month
Be part of the conversation with other Spectator readers by getting your first three months for £3.
UNLOCK ACCESS Just £1 a monthAlready a subscriber? Log in