The civil war that followed the Syrian popular uprising that sought to overthrow Bashar Al-Assad created a perfect environment for ISIS to expand by recruiting more fighters. The terror group attracted thousands of young people from different backgrounds and nationalities. But what baffled many was the number of women recruited to the group.

“Traditionally, terrorism has been considered a male domain, women, on the other hand, are believed to have roles that are inherently less important and by extension undeserving of equal consideration in efforts to counter this phenomenon”, read a report on women in Daesh prepared by the Carter Centre in 2017.

“For many, it is difficult to comprehend how a terrorist organisation like Daesh can appeal to so many women from varied national and cultural backgrounds.”

Even though terror groups such as the Taliban had recruited women, the number recruited by the ISIS was incomparable. According to a report by Kings College’s International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation, 4,761 (13%) of 41,490 who became ISIS fighters in Syria and Iraq were women. The number was even higher considering that the report did not include women recruited locally.

Why so many women were attracted to ISIS remains a topic of discussion. According to the Carter Center, ISIS capitalised on people’s disillusionment with their governments to attract recruits.

Women living in the Middle East and North Africa encounter different daily challenges such as unemployment, limited access to basic services, and oppression. Such conditions predisposed them to Daesh’s idealistic representation of a well-equipped state that offered a high standard of living and promises of amenities that catered for women’s rights.

These views were echoed by Journalist Mah-Rukh Ali in his paper, explaining how ISIS exploited women for propaganda. He argued that women were attracted by a promise of an adventurous life portrayed by ISIS through its propaganda tools. Many girls were also influenced by the social media activity of those who had already joined.

Key in helping ISIS recruit more women in its ranks was a manifesto of women prepared by the Al-Khanssaa Brigade which was mainly made of foreign women fighters. By publishing the manifesto ISIS hoped to position itself as the champion and protector of women’s rights. This they believed would help attract to the caliphate women from countries where women’s rights were violated.

Part of the document read, “Women felt the effects of poverty more than men. It meant that they were not able to sustain themselves as easily as they should have been able to. This miserable situation is obliterated by the Zakar chamber of ISIS, which is installed so women could take their rightful livelihood from it. Hence all due respect and capability is given back to women and harm does not come to them.”

Boasting of how the ISIS justice system was effective in protecting women’s rights, the document stated, “Women now go to courts and openly talk of their issues. They find that they are listened to and their issues are dealt with.”

Many women fell for such promises and left to join ISIS. However, they found a different situation when they arrived in the caliphate. They found a society where women were suppressed and mistreated under radical Islamic rules. They were recruited as policewomen to propagate ISIS abuses and to enforce laws that violated the rights of their fellow women.

They arrested and tortured women who were not fully covered, who embraced western culture and those who ventured outside without a proper reason.

Aisha was one of the foreign women recruited by ISIS in Raqqa Syria. In an exclusive interview with Aljazeera, she said, “That was our job, torturing people. We tortured a lot of people. I cannot even tell you how many”.

She narrated how ISIS had used a pair of pliers to pull out the nails of a woman who had applied polish on her nails and how she had seen pregnant women being tortured.

“Some women were in the early stages of pregnancy. The torture caused them to miscarry. A woman gave birth in the offices of the religious police. She was on her way to the hospital. She had not covered her eyes so they arrested her. She gave birth at the station while they were torturing her. A lot of women had miscarriages there,” said Aisha.

For those women who committed minor offences, there was a biter who would bite the nipples of their breasts as punishment. There was this story of a woman who had just given birth. Her son had a fever. She went out in a panic to get medicine at the pharmacy. A religious police car drove by, they arrested her.

They said,” Why did you go out in that outfit ?” The women answered that she had just had a baby. But the biter still had no mercy and went on to bite her breast. “ The biter would sometimes use her teeth, other times electrical pliers,” said Aisha

ISIS was also known for its sexual objectification of women. Many were detained as sex slaves while others were forced into temporary marriages. They justified their heinous acts by misinterpreting Islamic laws. They claimed that Fatwa Nikkah ul Jihad, required a woman to submit herself to jihadi fighters.

This was to satisfy the sexual needs of the fighters so that they could concentrate on the war. The Fatwa according to ISIS, permitted a jihadi to marry a woman for a week or even a few hours. This had been largely propagated by Saudi born Muslim cleric Sheikh Mohamed al-Arefe, who encouraged women to present their bodies to jihadis fighting Bashar Al Assad.

Perhaps the Yezidi women were the most sexually assaulted women by the ISIS. Many of them were captured as sex slaves when ISIS seized areas of Sinjar in Kurdish Iraq. The Yazidi are considered a minority with their numbers being estimated to be around 50,000 according to the latest figures.

Since they are not Muslims, ISIS called them ‘kafir’ (pagans) and executed many Yazidi men. They detained many Yazidi girls and abused them sexually claiming they were a gift from God to enable them to fulfil their sexual desires while fighting the holy war.

Asharq Haji Hamid was one of the Yazidi girls enslaved by ISIS. In an interview aired on Iraqi TV Al-Iraqiya, she recounted how she was captured and raped by an ISIS fighter called Abu Humam after the capture of Sinjar.

“Abu Humam selected me and then he pulled me by the hair. I did not expect them to rape us, because I was only 14. But they restrained us with iron handcuffs and violently raped us. They raped us one after the other. He kept on promising me that he would let me go but then he would rape three or four times a day. I was just a child and didn’t know anything,” Hamid said.

Long after he sexually assaulted Ms Hamid, Humam was arrested and is currently in prison in Iraq. Last week Hamid now 20, was brought before the captured Humam, and tearfully confronted him saying, “Why did you do this to me? Do you have any feelings?” She fainted shortly after.

L'articolo The Women In and Under the Islamic State proviene da InsideOver.

Face concealed in a baby blue burka in Afganistan, 23-year-old Miriam’s voice remained even as she told HAWCA.

“My father-in-law was standing near me. He was pressuring me to burn myself. He told me, “Pick up that fuel and stop talking so much”. He kept arguing and yelling at me. My husband was not in the house, so he didn’t hear us fighting. When I threw the fuel on myself, my husband came inside the house. While I was burning I fell unconscious.”

She continued, “When I was in the hospital everyone kept asking me, ‘Why did you burn yourself? You will go to hell for what you did.’ I was praying to God to not let me die. You can let me die from any other pain but don’t let me die from this pain. The moment I started burning, I regretted what I had done.”

At six years old, Miriam’s future was planned. Her father got her engaged and by 11-years-old, she was married. Despite her pleas, her husband’s family refused to let her continue going to school. Frequently beaten and abused by her husband and in-laws, Miriam had come to the end of her tether to a place of no hope.

Yet, Miriam’s story is far from uncommon. In the years gone by, the dramatic suicide method of self-immolation amongst Afghan women has steadily increased. No statistics exist to give a true representation of the number of women who have set themselves on fire; many never make it to the hospital and often, families are too embarrassed or scared of prosecution.

The head nurse at Herat Regional’s Hospital Burn Unit revealed to Mother Jones that in the 13 years employed there, she had witnessed at least a thousand self-immolation cases. Virtually all of them were young women who had experienced domestic abuse, starvation, or forced into violent marriages. Tragically, a large percentage of the women who try to burn themselves die from their injuries.

Afghanistan has endured a long and turbulent history of decades of warfare and dictatorship, which would have impacted in a cataclysmic way on the lives of those there. Having experienced the death of loved ones, a lifetime of traumatising events, human rights violations, and poverty, most Afghans would be left with psychological and emotional wounds.

Nahid Aziz, an associate professor in the Clinical Psychology Programs at Argosy University, Washington, D.C. and a women’s rights activist, said in her report:

“One of the major negative consequences of on-going war is the poor mental health status of Afghans. There are high levels of mental health-related problems in Afghanistan. According to some estimates, as much as 60-80 per cent of the Afghan population suffers from various types of psychological problems, such as depressive disorders, anxiety, and complex trauma. Due to the disabling nature of mental disorders, serious social consequences, including segregation and stigmatization, have become daily realities for many Afghans who are directly impacted and affected by the social consequences.”

Dr. Aziz believes that the rate of self-immolation has increased exponentially among young Afghan women due to serious and chronic mental health problems, which have a direct impact on family function, with an increased risk of domestic violence.

Domestic abuse in Afghanistan is almost normalised, and around 87% of Afghan women have experienced some form of domestic violence in their lifetime. Economically and socially dependent on family members, very rarely do women report an assault. As such, blame is often placed on her when abuse occurs, with the general consensus being that she is either not a good wife or mother. Therefore, abuse at the hands of men is frequently condoned.

Yet, these self-immolation cases are symptomatic of a much greater issue in a country heavily governed by androcentric ideals where violence against women remains rampant and upheld. In UNAMA’s report, just 5% of cases regarding violence against women were adjudicated through criminal prosecution and 65% reached an outcome through non-judicial sources, such as going to a traditional local council or shura where elders – consisting of male ­– will decide the best course of action for the woman.

L'articolo The Women Who Set Themselves On Fire In Afghanistan proviene da InsideOver.

Bi Mkami’s skin is withered and plastered in a map of scars. She walks with a heavy limp and the tiredness of her body is distinct in each measured movement. In a video by Maweni Farm Documentaries, the old woman points out the jagged raised scars from being stabbed with a spear, which wind around her legs and form bulbous ridges around her shaved head. She talks about the time she was beaten so brutally that she gave birth to a baby with a crushed skull. Poignantly, she murmurs: “My life story is about giving birth to children who die.”

After years of abuse and violence, she was finally able to escape the punishing clutches of the husband who frequently beat her senseless.

“I started a business of selling booze there. My daughter had a kiosk and sold food. She cooked rice, tea, [and] mandazi while I sold the alcohol. She wanted to build a proper house for [sic] the money we made. But I told her that I should marry a woman to help her instead. I went and married this one,” Bi Mkami said as she spoke about her wife.

More and more heterosexual women from the Kuria tribe of Tanzania are turning to the centuries-old custom of nyumba ntobhu or ‘house of women’ to save themselves from domestic violence and abuse, child marriages, and female genital mutilation. The government and UN estimate that 78 percent of women from the Mara area – which largely comprises of the Kuria people – have been sexually, physically, or psychologically abused by their husbands.

Bi Mkami’s young wife, Bei Ng’ombe, a pretty girl with a silky complexion and arched cheekbones explained: “Here at home, I saw how my father and his wives clashed all the time. I thought… no! I saw other women living well together and they had babies too. But to be molested by a man? No man has hurt this body since I was married. Never. I don’t know how a man’s beating feels. Look – where are my scars? None. I’ve never been cut with knives or molested. That’s why I live with a woman. I was so afraid of being cut that I chose to be married to a woman.”

In this androcentric society, women do not often own land or have the same rights to assets as men. If an older woman is widowed or her husband has left, and she has no male offspring, she stands to lose everything she owns. She is, however, able to safeguard her position by marrying a younger woman who already has – or potentially will have – a son.

Women often have little say about the men selected for them, but in this case, the young wife can find a male partner of her choice with the intention of giving birth to a son, who will then act as a male heir for the older woman. Generally, only men can inherit properties so, in this way, the older woman can protect her possessions and the family home.

Same-sex marriages in Tanzania are illegal and homosexuality is frowned upon. In 2018, the World Bank revoked a $300 million loan to Tanzania in response to the country’s controversial laws. It became illegal to question official statistics and having “carnal knowledge of any person against the order of nature” – which generally relates to men having sex with other men – can denote being imprisoned for 30 years or more.

Unlike same-sex marriages in Western countries, however, the marriage between both women in nyumba ntobhu relationships is non-sexual and exists purely on a business-like or platonic basis. And as such, it is socially acceptable amongst Kuria tribes.

Yet, nyumba ntobhu is still not a remedy for what festers at the root of the problem. It does not necessarily correlate to a happy marriage since the women have exchanged one restriction for another. They still remain deeply subjugated by a patriarchal culture – where they continue to not have the same rights or standards of living as their male counterparts.

L'articolo The Straight Women Marrying Each Other To Avoid Domestic Abuse proviene da InsideOver.

About six hours from Nairobi is the little village of Umoja. The dusty plains are golden in the light of day and farm animals roam in the sweltering heat. A babble of children’s laughter fills the air. Adorned in vibrantly coloured Samburu clothes and necklaces, women go about their mundane chores. It looks like any other community in Kenya, with the exception of one marked difference – no men live in Umoja.

Africa frequently comes under heavy criticism for its patriarchal traditions and subordinate roles that are enforced on women. Yet, Umoja’s system is matriarchal – one that has continued to prosper and strive.

The Samburu – a sub-tribe of the famous Maasai people – have strict rules that govern women. Samburu women are generally regarded as the property of their husbands and have little rights. They are not allowed ownership of things such as land or animals, and are subjected to forced marriages to much older men, female genital mutilation, sexual abuse, and domestic violence. During the 1990s, there were numerous rapes reportedly committed by British soldiers in the region. A case for over 1,400 Samburu women, who claimed to be raped, was filed against the military. Following this spate of alleged sexual violations, women said that their husbands beat them due to the taboo attributed to rape. They were chased from their homes for bringing shame and dishonour to their spouses. Rebecca Lolosoli was also one of those to receive a severe beating from her husband.

When a handful of them found themselves facing homelessness, Lolosoli came up with the idea of a sanctuary for those who were fleeing sexual and domestic violence. In 1990, she founded Umoja, which means “unity” in Swahili. Word soon spread about the all-female safe haven; more women – who travelled from far and wide – started to turn up with their children to seek refuge. Before long, Umoja was home to a mélange of outcasts – those fleeing genital mutilation, child marriages, rape, violence, abusive marriages, and other social norms that infringed upon basic human rights.

“We are always under men,” explained Lolosoli, the chief of Umoja, in an interview with the NY Times. “The men treat us like nothing. You are there to give them children. We’re like property, and we’re mistreated.” “We’ve seen so many changes in these women,” she added. “They’re healthier and happier. They dress well. They used to have to beg. Now, they’re the ones giving out food to others.” According to Samburu tradition, there is no such thing as divorce. From time to time, a husband still wanders into Umoja – unannounced and livid – demanding that his wife returns home. When he gets disgruntled or aggressive, the solution is simple – the local authorities are called and he is promptly removed.

“Sometimes a man will come in and want to beat his wife,” said Lolosoli. “He’ll see that the woman’s earning some money and wearing nice clothes. She’ll always tell him to go away. You should see his face when she says, ‘I don’t need you anymore.” Over the years, the women have stared adversity in the eye. Men from neighbouring villages have brought court cases against them, and in 2009, Lolosoli’s husband, armed with a gun, charged into the village – intent on killing her and anyone else who stood in his way. Yet, the women have remained steadfast and their will has never wavered.

Although they live frugally, they have been enterprising and resourceful when it comes to sustaining their livelihood. To supplement an income, they run a tourist campsite adjacent to where safaris travel through. Many of these visitors are often curious to see the fabled village where women wield absolute power in a largely male-dominated nation. A small entry fee is charged to those wishing to visit. And the women of Umoja craft and sell traditional flamboyant jewellery, which their visitors often purchase. The village now has its own school. And importantly, the women of Umoja own the land that they are on.

L'articolo The Village Where Men Are Banned proviene da InsideOver.

“Sometimes, you see that a little boy goes into the toilet and immediately, an adult detainee goes after them, and when the boy comes out, you don’t need to be told what has happened to him,” a former warder at Nigeria’s Maiduguri Prison told Amnesty International.

Abuse of children is not unusual in those cells. Nor is it kept a secret – so much so that it is sometimes possible to hear the abuse happening, entangled in the muffled sobs of a child.

“The condition there [in the prison] is not good for children and it is difficult to stop what is going on with the boys. The only way is for them to be taken out of there. What do you expect when you keep children with grown-up men?” the man added.

An investigation by Amnesty revealed that children are being unlawfully detained at two notorious prisons in the country – Maiduguri Maximum Security Prison and Giwa Barracks. Such incarceration of children exposes them to violations of the most ineffable kind.

Isa Sanusi, Media and Communications Manager of Amnesty International Nigeria explained: “Our investigation shows rampant cases of sexual abuse of children in Maiduguri Maximum Security Prison in the Borno state of Nigeria. We found that children are kept in the same prison cells as adults. This gave the adults an opportunity to exploit and sexually abuse the children. Officials are aware that this abuse is going on, but they refused to do anything about it. Little boys are frequently sexually abused by other inmates, and women and girls also face similar exploitation.”

Sanusi divulged that Amnesty has repeatedly asked the Nigerian authorities to work towards safeguarding children in a more effectual manner, and to put a ban on the detaining of children in the same facilities as adults.

“We are again and again calling on the Nigerian government to end this situation that allows this abuse to take place. It is illegal and harmful to keep children in the same prison or detention facility as adults. Many children are currently being held in similar situations all across Nigeria,” she said. “We call on Nigerian authorities to investigate these allegations – independently and impartially, to ensure that those found guilty will be held accountable. Nigerian authorities must provide separate detention facilities for children. It is unlawful to keep children in the same detention cell with adults.”

Amnesty also interviewed female inmates in their report, who detailed circumstances of being forced into sexual relationships with security guards to barter for food, soap, clothing, and other basic necessities. Furthermore, the women are commonly led to believe that should they engage in such activities, that they might be released. Since the soldiers are responsible for calling out the names of those due to be released, it is easy for them to read out a favoured name instead.

One former detainee alleged that she had become pregnant by a soldier. When the time was right, the man in question did the necessary documentation so that her name would be called out amongst those who set to be released.

“It is usually a case of security forces who are guarding detention facilities, exploiting women detainees in exchange for food or other things. Some women told us that they witness cases of rape and other forms of exploitation of women by security personnel. And sometimes women are promised freedom if they agree to offer sex,” Sanusi went on to say.

As a result of the Boko Haram conflict, people suspected of having any connections to it were detained in facilities all over the nation. Many of the women were kidnapped, raped, or forced into marriages by Boko Haram, and instead of being liberated, were arrested for being “Boko Haram wives”. The women continue to be imprisoned – despite this going against both Nigerian law and international human rights law.

“There is a need for authorities to ensure that all those detained on suspicion of links to Boko Haram are either freed or prosecuted before a court of law. And all the security personnel accused of sexually abusing women and children must be held responsible,” Sanusi stated.

“Nigeria’s justice system failed to ensure timely prosecution of suspects or release of those found not guilty of any offences. This is the reason why there are many detainees – some spending years in detention without trial. The women and children are being sexually exploited because of the lack of safeguards in the detention facilities, and as such, have been rendered vulnerable.

Since 2016, Amnesty has reported that seven women have given birth inside the cramped and squalid prison, and that several women, children, and babies have died on the Giwa’s compound.

L'articolo Children and Women Being Raped in Nigerian prisons proviene da InsideOver.

Gulnaz, a demure and quiet Afghan woman, gained public attention in 2011. At 16-years-old, a male relative had raped and impregnated her. When she reported the incident, she was promptly arrested and jailed for 12 years for adultery since her attacker was married. When media interest in her case intensified, her sentence was reduced to 3 years.

International uproar ensued, and Gulnaz was eventually released after receiving a pardon by presidential decree. Yet, the harsh reality was that the young woman would trade one prison for another. The law deemed her as a free woman, but society would narrate something different since she had given birth to her rapist’s daughter

The ignominy of having a child out of wedlock in Afghanistan – irrespective of if the child was resultant of rape – provides only one resolution. Gulnaz married her attacker. By 2015, she was pregnant with his third child and living with him, his first wife, and all of their of children.

“If I hadn’t married her, according to our traditions, she couldn’t have lived back in society,” her husband, Asadullah, told CNN. “Her brothers didn’t want to accept her back. Now, she doesn’t have any of those problems.”

“Now she is beside me and knows that it was not as big as they had shown it,” he said.

Gulnaz, who remained expressionless and never made eye contact with her husband, mumbled:

“I didn’t want to ruin the life of my daughter or leave myself helpless so I agreed to marry him. We are traditional people. When we get a bad name, we prefer death to living with that name in society.”

Yet, Gulnaz’s story is far from extraordinary in a country where gender roles are governed by androcentric values. Fleeing violence or abuse, rape, and sex out of wedlock (zina) are just some of the things that are regarded as “moral crimes”.
Human Rights Watch estimated that “moral crimes” account for half of all women (non-juveniles) in Afghanistan’s prisons and virtually all teenage girls in its juvenile detention facilities.

The prisons are cramped and squalid; the women are exposed to a catalogue of sanitation and hygiene issues. Stories of the inmates being beaten by the staff are also not uncommon. Furthermore, the cells are overrun with toddlers who are either born in prison or taken there by their mothers following her arrest.

Those who have called for a change in this conservative and patriarchal society face a huge challenge in a country that was led by the Taliban just eighteen years ago. There have been numerous attacks and assassinations of outspoken female politicians and activists.

Women for Afghan Women (WAW) is an organisation that provides transitional houses for newly released women. After leaving prison, they are often forced to live on the streets or return to their homes where they may face abuse or even death for “shaming their families”. Over the years, WAW has assisted over 1,000 women and their children with homes, legal support, and the skills they need to reintegrate into society.

Citing Human Rights Watch and other reports, WAW affirms that many of the women that they serve in their Transitional Houses were charged and imprisoned for alleged “moral” crimes. Many have fled from rampant abuse including forced and/or underage marriage; domestic violence–including beatings, burnings, and stabbings; rape; forced prostitution; kidnapping; and/or the threat of being the victim of an alleged “honor” killing. Furthermore, once a woman has been charged with a “moral” crime, there is rarely an investigation into the abuse or prosecution of abusers.

“Although laws are in place and the status of women and the protection of their rights have greatly improved in Afghanistan, particularly since the fall of the Taliban, we still have much work to do to secure the sanctity of women’s rights and their protections under the law and under Islam,” said Najia Nasim, Executive Director of WAW.

“Crimes committed against Afghan women, including their incarceration for alleged “moral” crimes or their murder in alleged “honor” killings, are the result of an ingrained mind-set that still permeates even the official judicial system. WAW and the work of many others in the country are all part of the tireless efforts being made to ensure that there is long-term cultural change, so that this mind-set and these conditions will change for the better, for good.”

L'articolo Afghan Women Imprisoned For “Moral Crimes” proviene da InsideOver.

Welcome to the Trokosi’s clandestine playground. There are no games to be played and the waif girls who roam here, sometimes daydream about suicide.

For centuries, girls as young as two-years-old, have been offered to shrines across Ghana as slaves to the priests who dwell there. The girls are there to act as repayments for crimes committed by their relatives – some of whom have died generations before the girl was born.

Julie Dorbadzi was six when she was donated to recompense for a theft of 200 cedis (about 10 pence) that her great-grandfather had committed. Ten-year-old Mewornovi Kokou was given because of a crime that was committed by an ancestor so long ago that no one recalls what the crime was or who did it. Grace Duga Cabanu was sent as an offering to the Gods to improve the family’s harvests – an agreement that existed since the early 1800s with her ancestors. Abla Kotor was used to atone for her father raping his niece.

Most of the girls are destined to spend the remainder of their lives in servitude in whatever capacity the elders see fit – toiling long hours in the farms; as servants in the house; and as sex slaves to the priests. They are relegated to being little more than human property.

Nor does death necessarily bring with it any escape. When a girl dies, the burden is sometimes on her relatives to replace her with another young virgin. The practice can fuse into a conveyor belt of young girls whom the family will keep providing.

The ancient custom originates from the Ewe communities of Togo, Benin, and Ghana. The word stems from the two Ewe words “tro”, which means God, and “kosi”, which means slave, and as such, the term translates to “slave of God.” It has been particularly prevalent in the upper Volta region of Ghana which borders Togo, and some tribes in Togo and Benin have similar practices.

Danny Morris, National Director of International Needs UK, detailed the difficulties the dated practice has on its victims.

“One of the things is the feeling of powerlessness as a teenager or a young girl. The trauma of being separated from her family and then growing up in this situation gives real powerlessness to a young girl. These girls are there for life. And they are there to bear children to the priests. There is also a sense of fatalism to which she is resigned. It carries a mental and moral hold because the girls believe they are saving their family. And if they try to break away from it, it will put their family in danger.  And those who do manage to break free most times will find they are ostracised from their family, society, and villages.”

In 1998, International Needs Ghana was instrumental in a campaign, which saw the release of around 2,800 Trokosi girls. It ultimately led to the outlawing of the system, for which the organisation was directly responsible. Yet, despite being banned, Trokosi continues to flourish in some parts of the country.

“Making it illegal meant that it was driven underground,” Morris explained. “One of the problems was that outlawing the practice appeared to some to be the imposition of Western values on a traditional culture. But we believe it is a moral issue. How could you live with yourself if you allow society to enslave young girls and women?”.

“It is rooted in a cultural belief which requires a change from the ground up. And in rural parts of Ghana, traditional beliefs hold a lot of power – especially when it is linked to extreme poverty. There was one girl who was given to the shrine because her family believed they were cursed since they had certain illnesses. The interesting thing is that we rescued women but because their families still believed in the practice, they didn’t want to be reunited with their daughters. There are hundreds of women who have been liberated and are living normal lives. But sadly, they are still alienated by their families. “So it requires a real transformation in thinking for it to truly be eradicated. But we will continue to support the eradication of this process and practice.”

Kept far away from prying eyes, the custom still remains under-reported – even in Ghana itself. Many Ghanaians who live in the city and away from the rural areas are unaware of the tradition. And then there also remains a certain sector of society who does know but chooses to ignore it.  And so, away from the bustling towns, in the far-flung dusty regions, the regressive institution that is Trokosi continues to prosper.

L'articolo Child Sex Slaves for Relatives’ Crimes proviene da InsideOver.