The story of the poor girl from Zarqa is a story that I will never forget! Indeed if there was a small chance of forgetting it, then it evaporated after reading the heart rending details of the slaughter. Her father raped her for 5 years, opened her belly with a carpet cutter, killing the baby inside, and then stitched the wound?
By the way he is not nuts, as they are claiming, or something. He learned the procedures through the internet, and as soon as she died he went to the police station and turned himself in. Which means he is trying to get a light sentence for what he did.
This is not the first case of a father raping his daughter in Jordan. Such cases have been popping up every 6 months or so for some time now. In one case, a girl was rapped by her father, brother and uncle. So what the heck is going on? Btw, here we are talking about extreme cases, which were destined to surface up and be exposed, but what about the other ones that are not reported? I am 100% sure that there are even boys who are rapped by their relatives.
I am still shocked, but I think this is very normal in a society that does not give a damn about kids who are abused by sick parents, and where a woman is treated like a cattle, and can be killed just because her cousin doubted that she had a relationship with her husband before she married him.
We are talking about 5 years here, and nobody got to know? Do you know why? Because this father could anytime kill both of his daughter and wife and say that they committed adultery. It is this "privacy" of families, and the laws that can be broken in the name of fake honor that renders our legal system inefficient. Not to forget the social screwed up mentality that forces women to shut up and put up with the injustice they face from their purported "protectors".
We should soon have a hot line for reporting any abuses, and deal with them seriously and strictly. Females and kids are to be protected by any means, and this should be the highest priority item on the agenda of the government, NGOs and human rights movements in Jordan.
God bless her soul! She was raped and killed by the one who should have protected her. That is the mother of all miseries. (For more details, Read here.)
Excellent, excellent post, Haitham. And by the way, I think Kinzi has the statistics on it, but from what I understand, more young boys than girls are sexually abused in Jordan - the statistics are reversed from the Western world where more young girls are abused.
ReplyDeleteFor that matter, there are cases in our neighborhood - we live in Kammaliyya and on the village end there were 2 separate instances of child rape committed by relatives from the same family.
It happens everywhere in the world and it is frightening, but what scares me the most in Jordan is that people don't TALK about it. I asked my son's KG is they planned to teach kids about "good touch, bad touch" and other methods to teach young children about these situations and they thought I was crazy. I feel very alone teaching my son to be safe.
Emi,
ReplyDeleteWelcome to the land of ostriches, where any problem is solved by ignoring it till it turns to another bigger problem!
Not sure if you know this, Emi, but child molesting by relatives is a very well known thing in the history of the middle east! Indeed we have urban legends about children molesting, specially boys, ask about a city in Palestine called Nablus!
One of the things that is well known in the U.S. is that the people you would least suspect of hurting your children - the people you trust the most, be they from the church/mosque/synagogue or the Boy Scouts, or the uncle or cousin - are so often the perpetrators of these crimes.
ReplyDeleteIt's really scary.
But why, would you hypothesize, are boys more often the victims in the Middle East?
Ya Haram! How can someone do this? I mean this is your child, you are supposed to protect her from harm show her right from wrong, you are supposed to be her shield from danger. How can you ever lay a wrongful hand on such an innocent child yours or not. It's not just the middle east it's all over the world, in countries in Africa virgin girls are raped as a way to clean one from their disease, women and girls, even young boys are being manipulated and used. The middle east is a special case due to the amount of it hidden from public eye. Enshalla he get's what he deserves and her family can rest easy.
ReplyDeleteEmi,
ReplyDeleteI decided to search the internet for this, I was shocked, and it suddenly became crystal clear! Those urban legends did not come out of nothing! Not only this, but I also learned that many old Arabic poems had the theme of child molesting! I just will not continue here, I feel like throwing up already!
Douja,
I doubt that her family can rest easy! What do you think of those two poor children? Her brother and sister? May God be with them!
The thing is, nobody interferes with kids upbringing in Jordan, it is seen as a private matter. Children can be maltreated in every way possible, it is still nobody's business. Go figure!
ReplyDeleteAnd, as long as we have "ahkam mo5afafeh" due to "transient insanity", such a problem will not be solved...
Hello Ehab,
ReplyDeleteYes, what you said is true! Even though I do not believe in this transient insanity! Most of those cases were deliberately planned including this one!