‘Summer Brides’: Under-Age Daughters Sold as ‘Sex-Slaves’ in Egypt to Wealthy 'Arab' Tourists

From Al Arabiya:

Wealthy Arab tourists from Gulf countries are paying money to purchase under-age Egyptian girls as “summer-brides”, claims a new report on human trafficking released by the U.S. State Department.

The marriages are not legally binding and end when the men return to their home countries.

According to the report “Trafficking in Persons”, often times these temporary marriages are facilitated by the girls’ parents who profit from the transaction.

According to Britain’s The Daily Mail, the wealthy tourists pay an amount to poor families through intermediaries, ranging from anywhere between $495 and $4,950.The young victims, some under the age of 18, are then forced to serve as sex slaves as well as servants to their “husbands.”

Egypt has laws in place that aim to combat human trafficking which prevent foreigners from marrying an Egyptian woman if there is more than ten years age difference, but marriage brokers have found a way around that by forging birth certificates to make the girls appear older and the men younger.

These contracts also eliminate any potential problems with hotels and land lords who may demand to see proof of marriage before allowing a couple to stay in a room together, since pre-marital sex is prohibited in Islam.

In many cases, the family agrees to marry their daughter without her consent, but often the girls are willing participants as they see it as the only way to help provide for their families.

In some cases the men take the Egyptian girls back to their home country to work as maids for their first wives. But even the girls who stay in Egypt do not fare much better since they often become ostracized by society and find it difficult to re-marry in the traditional way, particularly if the “summer marriage” resulted in a child.

Many of the young women end up in a cycle of temporary marriages with Gulf tourists, and others are targeted by Egyptian men who marry them in order to force them into prostitution.

Many abandon the child out of shame, either to orphanages or leaving them to join the hundreds of thousands of street children that already exist in Egypt.

 Dr. Hoda Badran, who chairs the NGO Alliance for Arab Women, explained to the Sunday Independent that poverty is the main factor behind this phenomenon.

“If those families are in such a need to sell their daughters you can imagine how poor they are. Many times, the girl does not know she is marrying the husband just for the short term. She is young, she accepts what her family tells her, she knows the man is going to help them. If the girl is very poor, sometimes it is the only way out to help the family survive,” she told the newspaper.

The report by the State department said Egypt is making significant efforts to eliminate human trafficking, but due to the political unrest in the country over the past year, the government is unable to provide law enforcement and prosecution data on those efforts.

Furthermore, it said Egypt is continuing to develop strategies to implement a comprehensive action plan to address all aspects on trafficking.

In 2009, a court in Egypt’s second largest city Alexandria jailed two registrars for conducting temporary marriages of hundreds of underage girls, however NGOs say that this is only the tip of the iceberg, and that more needs to be done to implement existing laws.

Reading Material for Muslims During Ramadan 2012

Brief Summary of Islamic Fasting

Sawm (صوم‎) is the Arabic word which refers to Islamic fasting. The observance of sawm during the Islamic month of Ramadan is one of the Five Pillars of Islam and therefore a compulsory (fard) duty.

The salient features of Islamic fasting are:

 *For 30 days every lunar year (during the month of Ramadan), waking up before dawn and eating and drinking to prepare for the fast 

 *Refraining from eating, drinking, smoking, and engaging in sexual intercourse from dawn (fajr) to sunset (maghrib). 

 *Breaking the fast at sunset and again eating and drinking to prepare for the day ahead. 

The adverse effects of Islamic fasting are vast and encompass such issues as; health, national economy and productivity, crime rates, public safety and social behavior. In practice, Islamic fasting is unlike medical fasting or fasting as found in other religious traditions. It is more accurately described as delayed eating; Muslims simply turn their eating habits upside down and gorge at dusk and at dawn.

Binge eating is a common habit during Ramadan.[1] For example, in Egypt, national statistics point to a substantial increase in consumption of food, electricity, and medications related to digestive disorders during the month of Ramadan as compared with the monthly average in the rest of the year.[2] Similarly in Doha, Qatar, almost 8,000 cases of indigestion were recorded at the Hamad Medical Hospital emergency room solely in the first week of Ramadan 2011, due to "most of the population sleeping during the day" and eating "large feasts".[3]

Once the month of Ramadan comes to an end, Muslims then observe Eid ul-Fitr ("Festival of Fast-Breaking"), a day to celebrate the end of Ramadan. Eid celebrations include the unprecedented large-scale slaughter of hundreds of thousands,[4] possibly millions, of animals. In the Netherlands alone, which has little over a million Muslims, a 100,000 animals were slaughtered in 2010 for Eid al-Adha ("Festival of Sacrifice").[5]

 References for the article here: http://wikiislam.net/wiki/Sawm

Adverse Effects of Islamic Fasting

Medical fasting is different from Islamic fasting (Sawm), and contrary to popular Muslim beliefs, Islamic fasting, unlike Medical fasting, has numerous adverse effects that have been observed using scientific studies and news sources. Intermittent and prolonged fasting is generally not conducive to a healthy lifestyle. Depriving the body of water and essential nutrients by dividing and postponing meals to irregular intervals does nothing to limit consumption. In-fact it causes a host of health, performance and mood disorders. Fasting is not normally prescribed for the well being of human beings. Instead, it is commonly understood that eating healthy, smaller-portioned meals, interspersed throughout the day is far better in maintaining a well-balanced diet and far more forgiving on a person's metabolism. Any claims that prolonged and intermittent fasting contributes to the well-being of an individual's health are misleading, based on the scientific studies that prove otherwise. If the Islamic argument in favor of fasting is that “we fast because God commanded us to do so," then it is obvious that God is not a nutritionist or a dietitian because the negatives definitely outweigh the positives. So the question to the Muslim world is: what benefit does the Muslim world get for 1 billion people staying hungry throughout the day for one full month every year? Did Allah actually want Muslims to suffer physically, economically and socially for one month every year? Also, if fasting is beneficial as Muslims claim, why do Muslims not fast the entire year instead of just one month?

Read the full article here: http://wikiislam.net/wiki/Adverse_Effects_of_Islamic_Fasting

The Ramadan Pole Paradox

This article consists of a set of questions and answers exploring Ramadan's relation to the North and South Poles. According to Islamic rules, the length of a fast is governed by the rising and the setting of the sun. This can cause a huge problem for those who live close to these poles. The closer we get to the poles, the longer our days or nights become. They can eventually extend for up to several months each, making the fourth Pillar of Islam impossible to practice without starving yourself to death. Obviously Muhammad was unaware of the poles.

Read the full article here: http://wikiislam.net/wiki/The_Ramadan_Pole_Paradox

Muslim Statistics (Ramadan and Eid)

With the advent of Ramadan in just a few days, child trafficking, a trade that sometimes goes unpunished in Yemen, is expected to increase as food prices rise and parents struggle to provide for their children.

"I think during Ramadan prices rise and there is a lapse of security along the borders," Coordinator of Child Parliament Om Khalthoum said.

Almost 1,500 Yemeni children were saved by child protection centers from exploitation, abuse and deprivation that come at the hands of their traffickers or smugglers, according to Naseem Ur-Rahman of UNICEF. Yemeni children, primarily boys, are trafficked into Saudi Arabia for exploitation as beggars, street vendors and unskilled laborers.

While there are no statistics that determine how many children are trafficked on an annual basis, authorities do know that during the month of Ramadan the numbers rise. "One of the main problems is that there is a lack of reliable data," Ur-Rahman said.

. . .

There is also a need for a legal description of children trafficking specifically for sex, begging or any other action that assists or encourages children to escape from their houses to practice prostitution or any other immoral actions. Occasionally children are even maimed or crippled in order to ensure success in begging.

. . .

Despite making great strides in recent years, the government of Yemen does not fully comply with the minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking. Even with their latest significant efforts, the Yemeni government did not show evidence of progress in prosecuting and punishing trafficking offenders or in preventing sex trafficking over the last year, according to the US State Department Trafficking in Persons Report for 2009.

The Yemeni government reported no trafficking investigations, prosecutions, or convictions during the reporting period, and took no steps to address trafficking for commercial sexual exploitation.

Read the full article here: http://wikiislam.net/wiki/Muslim_Statistics_(Ramadan_and_Eid)

Ramadan Bombathon 2012

Oh, and don't forget to keep yourself up-to-date over at TROP with the latest scores in the 2012 Ramadan Bombathon. Islam (like last year, and the year before that) has taken an early lead:

http://www.thereligionofpeace.com/

Saudi Arabia: Destination for Human Trafficking, “Forced Prostitution”, Efforts to Combat Human Trafficking “Modest” at Best

From Bikya Masr:

Saudi Arabia is a “destination country” for men and women being trafficked for labor and “to a lesser extent, forced prostitution,” said the United States Department of State in its annual report on human trafficking published June 19.

Men and women from countries like India, Pakistan, Indonesia and Sudan travel to Saudi Arabia as domestic servants or other low-skilled workers.

Some of them subsequently face conditions comparable to involuntary servitude, including long working hours, deprivations of food, physical or sexual assault and restrictions on movement.

The report further claims that although many migrant laborers sign contracts, many report work conditions “that are substantially different from those described in the contract.”

These conditions are exacerbated by Saudi Arabia’s law, which requires foreign workers to obtain permission from their employer to get an exit visa before leaving the country.

According to the report, many employers make use of this law, forcing migrant workers to stay for months or years beyond their contract term.

The US State Department asserts that the efforts of Saudi government to combat human trafficking have been “modest” at best. Although the government reported that it prosecuted 11 cases of human trafficking, it is unclear if these cases occurred during the reporting period.

During the reporting period, the government achieved only one conviction under the anti-trafficking law. Details of the cases were not provided.

Additionally, the government’s annual budget for the fiscal year 2012 dedicates $1 million to the permanent committee to combat trafficking. However, procedures have never been implemented to systematically identify victims of trafficking among vulnerable populations. Moreover, the government officials lack the necessary training on prevention and prosecution of these cases, the report said.

This is not to say that Saudi government has made no progress. It is now a tier three country, according to the US State Department’s ranking and there have been some cases where foreign workers successfully sought help from the authorities.

In one case, a Saudi sponsor paid an Indonesian domestic worker $15,200 in back wages after Riyadh police intervened. In another case, a provincial governor helped an Indian shepherd to recover more than $22,500 in unpaid wages.

The Saudi Ministry of Labor has also produced a guidebook delineating foreign workers’ rights in Arabic, English and a few other languages. These guidebooks are continuously distributed in airports and contain a telephone number for workers to report abuse. Saudi police has likewise maintained a 24-hour emergency anti-trafficking hotline with operators who speak Arabic and English.

The US Department of State suggested various reports to the Saudi government in the sponsorship system and enforcing existing laws to discourage employers from withholding workers’ passports and restricting workers’ movements, including arbitrarily denying permission for exit visas.

The report also encouraged increased efforts to prosecute, punish, and stringently sentence traffickers.