Trafficked from Pakistan, raped and jailed in Saudi Arabia

Mazhar Abbas
AFP
April 25, 2006

KARACHI, Pakistan -- Sixteen-year-old Isma Mahmood was deported to Pakistan last month after serving six months in shackles and handcuffs in a prison in Saudi Arabia. Her crime: being raped by a Saudi man.

"It's difficult for me to talk about what happened to me, from rape to prison and from prison to deportation," Isma said in the office of a rescue trust in Karachi where she sat with her sister Muna, 18, who was also deported.

Isma's parents, originally from the central Pakistani city of Multan, were trafficked to Saudi Arabia around 20 years ago. "Though both of us were born there, we are Pakistanis," Isma said.

Human rights groups say that hundreds of people, particularly young women, are still trafficked from South Asia every year, with many going on to face a life blighted by physical and often sexual abuse.

In Isma's case, being born in Saudi Arabia was no help when she was raped last year in the holy city of Medina.

"I was the victim, I was raped and molested but I was named as the accused, and the man who committed the crime was not touched," she said, hiding her face with both hands in shame.

"He first kidnapped me, dragged me into his car," Isma said. "At first he asked me to sleep with him and offered good money. When I refused and tried to resist, he warned me of dire consequences and raped me in the car."

The unnamed man warned her that she would be imprisoned if she went to police, and said that the Saudi sponsor who brought her parents to the country through a Pakistani agent would have them all expelled.

"I am very powerful and could declare you a bad girl. Your father's sponsor is my friend and he will not support you," she quoted the man as telling her.

The sponsor, too, threatened Isma and Muna, warning that they would be punished unless they kept silent, she said, asking that the sponsor's name not be revealed to spare her family any additional grief.

"I and my sister thought otherwise and we went to police as we expected justice. But after a few hours of filing the report the police allegedly changed it," Isma said.

Under pressure from the Saudi sponsor, Isma's parents asked her to withdraw her allegations.

"I never wanted my parents to get into trouble as they were at the mercy of the sponsor and he lived in our neighborhood. So I did not speak much but police still put me behind bars," she said.

"My sister Muna tried to help me out but was also arrested and put into prison only because she spoke for me. They don't support immigrants and protect Saudi nationals," she said. "They never told us what the charges were."

Once in jail, their nightmare began in earnest, Isma said.

The women prisoners were mostly Pakistanis, Indonesians, Bangladeshis and Nigerians. Most of them came to Saudi Arabia through trafficking networks and were charged with prostitution, she said.

"No one would believe what it was like," Muna said.

"When I used to protest against the ill treatment they beat me on my back," Isma added. "We were chained all during this period. The only time jail officials removed the chain was during lunch or when anyone went to the bathroom or at prayer time," she said.

"Once a jail official offered me help and assured me I would be released if I agreed to sleep with him ... There was a Pakistani woman who was over 40 years old and developed Aids in prison, but she remained in chains before she was deported to Pakistan," she added.

Isma and Muna are now in the care of the Ansar Burney Trust, which deals with most of the hundreds of Pakistanis who are deported from the Middle East every year.

"It's pathetic that all this happened with Isma at the hands of a fellow Muslim," the trust's president Ansar Burney said.

Burney says that many poor women and girls from South Asia are lured with promises of good money working as maids or nurses, but their Arab sponsors and Pakistan agents later force them into prostitution.

Anyone who talks about the abuse faces the same fate as Isma and Muna, he said.

Pakistan in January arrested three people who ran a travel agency that allegedly sent young girls to the United Arab Emirates and other countries through fraudulent means, where they were forced into prostitution, officials said.

"The traffickers act like mafia and have contacts in the law enforcement and intelligence agencies, and if their photographs, names or details came in the media the girls' safety comes under threat," Burney said.

"They first put advertisements in newspapers, asking for maids or nurses and offer them good salaries. After interviews they arranged their passport, visa and other traveling documents through travel agents, who, too, in many cases were part of the gang," Burney said.

Some girls are also trafficked into Pakistan, Burney said, especially from Bangladesh.

"The government has failed to check the smuggling of children and women as they are not serious about proper legislation," said Anis Haroon, president of Pakistan's Aurat (Women) Foundation.