Iraq War. India Elections. US Imperialism. Climate Change. Peak Oil. WSF In India. Gujarat Pogrom. Join Mailing List. Submit Articles. Contact Us. W hen 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 After losing consciousness, she remembers waking up in the house of Um Ahmed, a female pimp, in the Saidiye district of Baghdad.
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. 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. We were terrified.
The women's new "owner" drove them, with another Iraqi woman, to Syria. All were given new names and passports to cross the border. They arrived at Damascus airport to fly to Yemen. Khalil was beaten and taken for questioning, to the relief of the three women. He beat Sajeeda so much that evening that she could not walk any more, she was in so much pain," recalls Huda. We had to wait a week for Sajeeda to get better, then we flew to Yemen. When the women arrived at Damascus airport, the corrupt official was present, and accepted Khalil's claim that the three were willingly travelling with him.
Khalil's version of events has been accepted by Colonel Faisal, head of the Baghdad anti-kidnapping unit. In an interview given in March, Col Faisal dismissed the girls' ordeal by saying that "those girls eloped with two young men who offered to marry them". He added that "there is no widespread abduction wave in Baghdad". Khalil's wife, Um Issam, an Iraqi, met the women at the airport in Sana'a. She took them to the el-Diafe Hotel in Aden.
