Abducted, beaten and sold into prostitution: two women's story In Iraq

[Barrett808]

Abducted, beaten and sold into prostitution: two women's story from an Iraq in turmoil
By Victoria Firmo-Fontan in Mahmoudiya, Iraq
24 July 2004

When the gunmen came to the gate of their Baghdad home, the lives of the sisters-in-law Huda, 16, and Sajeeda, 24 - the names they wish to be known by - were about to change for ever. It was 17 September 2003. "We were cleaning the front porch when five armed men came in, seized us and put a cloth over our mouths," recalls Huda.

After losing consciousness, she remembers waking up in the house of Um Ahmed, a female pimp, in the Saidiye district of Baghdad. "At first, I thought it was a nightmare, then I realised I was on a bed that was not mine, my sister-in-law Sajeeda was with me, and we were alone."

Sajeeda had been married only five weeks earlier.

Then came the beatings and the journeys between different houses and apartments in the city, orchestrated by Um Ahmed and her husband. Huda and Sajeeda were hidden in different locations across Baghdad, without food or water. "We tried to escape many times," Sajeeda says. "But they hit us and threatened to kill us. There was nothing we could do."

Meanwhile Huda's mother, Aisha, was searching for them. She went to her local police station, to the Baghdad police anti-kidnapping unit, all to no avail.

Ten days later, Um Ahmed sold the girls to an Egyptian man called Mohammed Hassan Khalil. "Because I was not married, I was sold for $6,000, and Sajeeda for $3,000," says Huda. "My hymen had a price - this is when we realised that we were going to have to do bad things with men. We were terrified."

(more)

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/story.jsp?story=544122

[MrsMatt]

1. How can anyone

read their story and not be moved to tears?

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

2. I wish

any man involved with the sex slave trade should be castrated. They are animals.