Islam - Current Day > Child Sex Attacks in London Migrant Hotel; Fulani Herdsmen Kill 15 Christians; Rewards for Palestinian Terrorist

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Teen boy ‘raped at refugee hotel’ where ‘another child

was sexually assaulted in separate attack’

Jane Matthews, Will Potter

11:12, 3 Nov 2022, Updated: 16:54, 3 Nov 2022

A TEENAGE boy has claimed he was raped at a refugee hotel where a child is said to have been sexually assaulted in a separate attack.

Police have arrested two men after launching probes into the alleged sex attacks which are said to have taken place at a hotel used to house refugees in East London.

The claims come amid fears of chronic overcrowding and unsafe facilities for refugees that have put significant pressure on the home secretary

A teenager has claimed he was raped by a man in his 30s at the hotel.

And another alleged sexual assault against a child is said to have taken place at the facility.

The Metropolitan Police confirmed to The Guardian that officers were investigating both sex crime claims.

Cops today confirmed to The Sun Online that a man in his 30s had been arrested and charged for rape, while a teenager had been arrested for sexually assaulting a child.

The rape is said to have happened last month, while the alleged sexual touching was a month prior.

The Met said: "Police were called on Wednesday, 5 October to a report of a rape at a hotel in Waltham Forest. Officers attended and spoke to the victim, a boy in his teens, and his family. Specialist support is being provided.

"A man, aged in his 30s, was arrested at the scene and taken into custody. He was bailed to return on a date in early January 2023."

Good grief! A rapist was bailed!!! Where did he go but right back to the hotel where the boy was raped? Does that make any sense?

They added: "A male, believed to be aged 17, was charged on Sunday, 11 September with one count of sexual touching of a child under 13. He was bailed by the court to appear at Stratford Magistrates’ Court on Wednesday, 9 November.

"The charge relates to an incident at a hotel in Waltham Forest on Friday, 9 September. The victim is being supported by specialist officers."

Both incidents took place within weeks of each other at a hotel where 150 children are reportedly squeezed in alongside 250 adults.

This comes after growing fears of chronic overcrowding and unsafe facilities for refugees that have put significant pressure on the home secretary, Suella Braverman.

The Guardian reported Grace Williams, the leader of Waltham Forest council, had written to Braverman to raise concerns about the lack of safeguarding at the London facility.

She reportedly said: “We have continuously expressed our view that accommodating families with children in contingency hotels is detrimental to children’s wellbeing. It is now evident that it is a risk to their safety too.”

The Home Office said: "It would be inappropriate to comment on an ongoing police investigation. We work around the clock with the police and local authorities to ensure the children in our care are safe."

Apparently, something is not working!

Clearsprings Ready Homes, which The Guardian reported operates the hotel for the Government department, declined to comment.

Islamic Extremists Kill 15 Christians in North-Central Nigeria

Morning Star News, 

October 27, 2022:

ABUJA, Nigeria (Morning Star News) – Suspected Fulani herdsmen and other terrorists killed two Christians in north-central Nigeria on Friday (Oct. 21) after slaughtering 13 others in two prior attacks, sources said.

The assailants attacked Gidan Ityotyev village, Obi County, at about 11 p.m., killing Moses Saaku and Aondofa Saaku and wounding a Christian woman, all members of the Universal Reformed Christian Church (NKST in Nigeria), said local community leader Ukpuu Abaa in a text message to Morning Star News.

“A Christian woman by the name of Kwaghdoo Saaku was injured when the herdsmen cut off one of her breasts,” Abaa said. “The herdsmen during the invasion of our village shot randomly at our people who were sleeping in their houses.”

In Keana County’s predominantly Christian village of Gidan Sule on the night of Oct. 8, the terrorists killed 10 Christians, displacing hundreds of others, said Peter Ahemba, president of the Tiv Development Association. Most of the slain Christians were women, children and the elderly who were unable to escape the onslaught, he said in a text message.

“Ten corpses of Christians killed during the attack on Gidan Sule community were recovered on the morning of Sunday, Oct. 9, by survivors in the community,” Ahemba said. “The attackers, who we strongly believe are herdsmen and terrorists, shot sporadically on Christians who were sleeping in their houses.”…

Nigeria led the world in Christians killed for their faith last year (Oct. 1, 2020 to Sept. 30, 2021) at 4,650, up from 3,530 the previous year, according to Open Doors’ 2022 World Watch List report. The number of kidnapped Christians was also highest in Nigeria, at more than 2,500, up from 990 the previous year, according to the WWL report.

Of course, these numbers require the cooperation of the Muslim government.

Nigeria trailed only China in the number of churches attacked, with 470 cases, according to the report.

In the 2022 World Watch List of the countries where it is most difficult to be a Christian, Nigeria jumped to seventh place, its highest ranking ever, from No. 9 the previous year.

$306,972 and university degrees – PA rewards to Hamas terrorist

involved in suicide bombing that murdered 23

by Nan Jacques Zilberdik, 

Palestinian Media Watch, 

November 1, 2022:

Do you know what a Palestinian terrorist who aided a suicide bomber who murdered 23 people received in prison? A generous salary and university degrees!

As Palestinian Media Watch has documented, the PA rewards imprisoned terrorists financially with monthly salaries from the day of arrest. In addition, the PA grants imprisoned terrorists several benefits, among them the possibility to earn university degrees. This is done in cooperation with the PA Ministry of Education and several Palestinian universities.

One imprisoned terrorist who has benefited from both is Hamas member Majdi Za’atri, who is serving 23 life sentences for transporting a suicide bomber to the bus the bomber chose for his attack and where he ultimately murdered 23, including children and babies, in 2003. Za’atri’s father proudly listed the degrees his murderer son has or will obtain while in prison:

Official PA TV host: We will talk about the dreams and ambitions of Majdi Za’atri (i.e., terrorist, involved in murder of 23)… He took advantage of the years in the occupation’s prisons. Has he obtained any certificates inside prison? …

Barakat Za’atri, father of terrorist Majdi Za’atri: “Allah be praised, he obtained a matriculation exam certificate, and after three years obtained a bachelor’s degree in social work. Now he is registered for a master’s degree, Almighty Allah willing, and within a year he will have a master’s degree.”

That should do him a lot of good in prison! How does a mass murderer qualify for a degree in social work? That shows you just how screwed up Palestinian society is. I mean, how bad can Palestinian society be that a mass murderer could improve it? 

In addition to free education for his involvement in the murder of 23 people, Za’atri has received a steady salary according to the PA’s “Pay-for-Slay” program. By the end of December 2022 the PA will have paid him $306,972 (1,081,800 shekels).

Venezuela has found a cheap way to deal with Rapists and Murderers - send them to America!

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Venezuela Empties Prisons and Sends Criminals to US Border:

House Republicans

By Frank Fang 

September 23, 2022

The Epoch Times

Venezuela is deliberately releasing prisoners, among them violent criminals, and has them travel to the U.S. southern border, a development that prompted 14 House Republicans to write to Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas.

Rep. Troy Nehls (R-Texas), who is leading the Republican effort to have Mayorkas answer questions, said in the Sept. 22 letter that the decision by the Nicolas Maduro regime has put the United States “in grave danger.”

“We write you with serious concern about a recent U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) intelligence report received by Border Patrol that instructs agents to look for violent criminals from Venezuela among the migrant caravans heading towards the U.S.-Mexico border,” the letter says, citing a recent report from Breitbart.

The outlet reported on Sept. 18 that it had reviewed the DHS intelligence report from an unnamed source within the U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP). The report warned that released prisoners—including those convicted of murder, rape, and extortion—had been seen within migrant caravans traveling from Tapachula, Mexico, to the southern border, as recently as July.

The report also said the Bolivarian National Intelligence Service, Venezuela’s intelligence agency, may have played a role in deliberately releasing prisoners.

Hours after Breitbart published the report, Nehls took to Twitter to announce that he had obtained confirmation from the DHS.

“DHS confirms that Venezuela empties prisons and sends violent criminals to our southern border,” Nehls wrote. “President Trump warned us about this years ago.”

Former President Donald Trump issued such a warning several times in 2021. He did it again last week while speaking to radio show host Hugh Hewitt, when he said America had become a “dumping ground” as other nations were “emptying their prisons into the United States.”

Illegal immigrants from Venezuela, who boarded a bus in Texas, wait to be transported to a local church by volunteers after being dropped off outside the residence of Vice President Kamala Harris, at the Naval Observatory in Washington, D.C., on Sept. 15, 2022. (Stefani Reynolds/AFP via Getty Images)

Nehls later commented on the Breitbart report during an interview with Fox News contributor Sara Carter on Sunday.

“This bombshell report confirms what we’ve known for years,” Nehls said. “Our adversaries despise what America stands for and take pride in emptying their prisons filled with the most violent and sick individuals to walk the earth and send them to our southern border, where they know they’ll have no trouble getting in.”

What America stands for in the eyes of Venezuelans is likely very different from what America stands for to Americans. The 19th and 20th-century rape of natural resources in Central and South America, and the 21st-century treatment of Venezuela, left many Latin Americans with a view of the USA that is a dramatically different color than Americans' view. The poverty we left those countries in, and the politics we interfered with so disgustingly and so often, has left them in poverty and chaos. The consequences are returning to our borders in great numbers.

Until America starts investing in those countries for the benefit of the people of those countries, the USA should not expect any improvement in the migrant crisis.

Nehls added, “Our overworked border patrol agents can only do so much when President [Joe] Biden gives everyone a no-strings-attached invitation into this country.”

Migrants

The letter comes as the United States is seeing an influx of migrants along the U.S.-Mexico border. According to CBP data, the number of migrants arriving at the southern border in fiscal year 2022 surpassed 2 million in August, with unprecedented numbers coming from Cuba, Nicaragua, and Venezuela.

The letter points out that there have been more than 130,000 encounters with Venezuelan nationals between October 2021 and July 2022.

“As a result of the Biden Administration’s disastrous border policies, it is unknown how many of the violent Venezuelan prisoners have been released into the interior of the U.S., as identifying Venezuelans with criminal records is nearly impossible unless the individual admits their records to U.S. authorities,” the letter says. “This will undoubtedly put our country in grave danger.”

The 14 Republicans want Mayorkas to answer more than 10 questions, including the precautions DHS is taking to prevent these Venezuelan criminals from entering the United States.

“Have any of the Venezuelan nationals encountered at the southern border this year been suspected to be released prisoners?” says one of the questions. “Does DHS have a projected headcount of how many released Venezuelan prisoners are expected to enter the U.S.?”

Another question asks, “Do you have reason to believe that the release of the convicts could be a purposeful geopolitical move specifically intended to impact U.S. national security?”

Initially, the crisis is among migrants who have now been infiltrated by convicted murderers and rapists. But, not being a matter of U.S. national security, the rape and murder of women and children among the migrants is of little interest to America until they cross the border.

“We need transparency and accountability from this administration,” Nehls wrote on Twitter.

Islam - Current Day > Afghanistan's Children under the Taliban

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AP PHOTOS: Backbreaking work for kids in Afghan brick kilns

By EBRAHIM NOROOZI

today

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — Nabila works 10 hours or more a day, doing the heavy, dirty labor of packing mud into molds and hauling wheelbarrows full of bricks. At 12 years old, she’s been working in brick factories half her life now, and she’s probably the oldest of all her co-workers.

Already high, the number of children put to work in Afghanistan is growing, fueled by the collapse of the economy after the Taliban took over the country and the world cut off financial aid just over a year ago.

A recent survey by Save the Children estimated that half the country’s families have put children to work to keep food on the table as livelihoods crumbled.

Nowhere is it clearer than in the many brick factories on the highway north out of the capital, Kabul. Conditions in the furnaces are tough even for adults. But in almost all of them, children as young as four or five are found laboring alongside their families from early in the morning until dark in the heat of summer.

Afghan children work in a brick factory on the outskirts of Kabul, Afghanistan, Saturday, July 23, 2022. Aid agencies say the number of children working in Afghanistan is growing ever since the economy collapsed following the Taliban takeover more than a year ago. (AP Photo/Ebrahim Noroozi)

Children are doing every step of the brickmaking process. They haul cannisters of water, carry the wooden brick molds full of mud to set them out in the sun to dry. They load and push wheelbarrows full of dried bricks to the kiln for firing, then push back wheelbarrows full of fired bricks. They pick through the smoldering charcoal that’s been burned in the kiln for pieces that can still be used, inhaling the soot and singeing their fingers.

The kids work with a determination born out of knowing little else but their families’ need. When asked about toys or play, they smile and shrug. Only a few have been to school.

Nabila, the 12-year-old, has been working in brick factories since she was five or six. Like many other brick workers, her family works part of the year at a kiln near Kabul, the other part at a one outside Jalalabad, near the Pakistani border.

A few years ago, she got to go to school a little in Jalalabad. She’d like to go back to school but can’t — her family needs her work to survive, she said with a soft smile.

“We can’t think about anything else but work,” she said.

Afghan children work in a brick factory on the outskirts of Kabul, Afghanistan, Saturday, Aug. 20, 2022. Aid agencies say the number of children working in Afghanistan is growing ever since the economy collapsed following the Taliban takeover more than a year ago. (AP Photo/Ebrahim Noroozi)

Mohabbat, a 9-year-old boy, stopped for a moment with a pained expression as he carried a load of charcoal. “My back hurts,” he said.

Asked what he wished for, he first asked, “What is a wish?” Then once it was explained, he was quiet a moment, thinking. “I wish to go to school and eat good food,” he said, then added: “I wish to work well so that we can have a house.”

The landscape around the factories is bleak and barren, with the kilns’ smokestacks pumping out black, sooty smoke. Families live in dilapidated mud houses next to furnaces, each with a corner where they make their bricks. For most, a day’s meal is bread soaked in tea.

Rahim has three children working with him at a brick kiln, ranging in age from 5 to 12. The kids had been in school, and Rahim, who goes by one name, said he had long resisted putting them to work. But even before the Taliban came to power, as the war went on and the economy worsened, he said he had no choice.

“There’s no other way,” he said. “How can they study when we don’t have bread to eat? Survival is more important.”

A 9-year-old Afghan girl works in a brick factory on the outskirts of Kabul, Afghanistan, Saturday, Aug. 20, 2022. Aid agencies say the number of children working in Afghanistan is growing ever since the economy collapsed following the Taliban takeover more than a year ago. (AP Photo/Ebrahim Noroozi)

In the stifling August sun covered in layers of black clothing works a 9 y/o girl, who, under all that dirt and sweat is a beautiful young girl whose eyes belie the sadness and hopelessness of her situation. Don't you just want to gather her in your arms and rescue her from that place?

Afghan children work in a brick factory on the outskirts of Kabul, Afghanistan, Tuesday, July 26, 2022. Aid agencies say the number of children working in Afghanistan is growing ever since the economy collapsed following the Taliban takeover more than a year ago. (AP Photo/Ebrahim Noroozi)

Workers get the equivalent of $4 for every 1,000 bricks they make. One adult working alone can’t do that amount in a day, but if the children help, they can make 1,500 bricks a day, workers said.

According to surveys done by Save the Children, the percentage of families saying they had a child working outside the home grew from 18% to 22% from December to June. That would suggest more than 1 million children nationwide were working. The surveys covered more than 1,400 children and more than 1,400 caregivers in seven provinces. Another 22% of the children said they were asked to work on the family business or farm.

The survey also pointed to the collapse in livelihoods that Afghans have endured the past year. In June, 77% of the surveyed families reported they had lost half their income or more, compared to a year ago, up from 61% in December.

A 9-year-old Afghan child works in a brick factory on the outskirts of Kabul, Afghanistan, Saturday, Aug. 20, 2022. Aid agencies say the number of children working in Afghanistan is growing ever since the economy collapsed following the Taliban takeover more than a year ago. (AP Photo/Ebrahim Noroozi)

On one recent day at one of the kilns, a light rain started, and at first the kids were cheerful, thinking it would be a refreshing drizzle in the heat. Then the wind kicked up. A blast of dust hit them, coating their faces. The air turned yellow with dust. Some of the children couldn’t open their eyes, but they kept working. The rain opened up into a downpour.

The kids were soaked. One boy had water and mud pouring off of him, but like the others he said he couldn’t take shelter without finishing his work. Streams from the driving rain carved out trenches in the dirt around them.

“We’re used to it,” he said. Then he told another boy, “Hurry up, let’s finish it.”

Human Trafficking Awareness Month - 'I Was Trafficked in Plain Sight'

Rebecca Bender

By Thorn, Guest Author

During Human Trafficking Awareness Month, we’re giving a voice to survivors and those working on the front lines of trafficking. While we’re proud of the results of our tools to identify victims faster, we know that the issue doesn’t end there. The following post was written by Rebecca Bender, co-founder and CEO of the Rebecca Bender Initiative. She is an award-winning, internationally recognized speaker, author and Survivor Leader in the movement to eradicate modern day slavery.

Usually when I tell people I’m a survivor of human trafficking, they say “Oh, like the movie Taken?”

I think, well, kind of. Except I wasn’t pulled out by one leg while gripping at the carpet. My dad didn’t have a special set of skills to come find me. I definitely was not sold for a million dollars on a yacht. So no, not really like Taken at all.

But it’s interesting because we all do that — survivors included. We envision human trafficking in this little box, because of that one movie we saw that one time. As survivors, we grew up in the same culture as all of you, so we envision it the same way. What happens in Nigeria looks very different than it does in Cambodia, than it does in New York City, than it does in Atlanta.

According to a recent study by Polaris Project, there are twenty five different typologies of exploitation in the United States alone. So if we’re all only thinking of that one way, we’re going to miss the dozens of ways that it looks in our very own communities.

What trafficking looks like

I grew up in a small lumber town in Southern Oregon. I was an average girl, who had never been put in an “at-risk” youth category. I played varsity sports. I was on the honor roll. And I graduated a year early, accepted into Oregon State University. The summer after graduation, I got pregnant and I had to withdraw from my dorm room. I moved in with my parents and had my daughter, but I kept moving forward. I enrolled in community college as a single mom. After all of my friends that had gone off to university moved out of their dorm rooms, they invited me and my daughter to move in with them. I was really excited to get out of my small town.

I realized very quickly though that the vulnerabilities that I had growing up — even in a “good home” — were still there. My parents divorced when I was young and it was an ugly divorce. My mom became a single mom, but by high school things had started to turn around for me. When I went off to college and moved in with my friends, those same vulnerabilities resurfaced.

While all my friends were off doing what college kids do, I was the girl stuck at home with the kid. Until I met the most amazing man. He was funny and charming. He got to know my hopes, my dreams, and my fears. He slowly pushed the boundaries of hypersexuality in my life. After six months of dating, he invited us to move in with him.

See, trafficking is not always abductions. It’s a slow, gradual expansion of boundaries and an increase of trust. The day that my daughter and I arrived in Las Vegas — which is where he moved us to — he forced me into human trafficking. For nearly six years, I was sold between three different traffickers. There were three other women in the home with us and two children.

During that time, I was branded twice. Having two men tattoo their names on my back like a piece of cattle. My face had been broken in five places, I was hospitalized for dehydration and overexhaustion. And I had been to jail seven times.

But I was never kidnapped. Or duct-taped. Or locked in a room with a dirty mattress.

The reality is that my daughter may have gone to school with yours; I may have stood next to you in the grocery store line. And nobody ever noticed. Nobody ever noticed because we all envision that one way. I went through the thought of I got on the plane “willingly”. I got out of the car “willingly”. I didn’t fully understand the complexities of force, fraud and coercion played out in my everyday life.

Thankfully, in 2006 the federal investigators raided the home and in 2007, it allowed me and my daughter an eventual avenue for escape. But I can tell you that running was not the hard part. The hard part was choosing poverty. The hard part was starting over at 26, with an 8-year-old girl, being homeless. The hard part was having a criminal record, a huge gap in job history, and more trauma than any person should live with. The hard part was “what now?”. I escaped, yes, but now the journey began to figure out how to navigate this new world of normalcy with the same vulnerabilities that got me trafficked in the first place.

There is much more to this story on Thorn. Please visit their site.

Is British Society Disintegrating? Of Course, the Kids Pay the Price

Domestic abuse 'biggest threat to child protection'

By Sean Coughlan
BBC News family and education correspondent

Domestic violence, family conflict and drink and drug abuse are the biggest drivers of the rise in child-protection cases in England, says the Local Government Association (LGA).

The organisation representing English councils has surveyed the councillors in charge of children's services about the causes of a 53% rise in child-protection cases over the past decade.

More than 80% identified domestic violence and substance misuse as being behind the increased numbers in their local authorities.

An average of 88 children are taken into care each day and the LGA asked the lead councillors for children's services for their view of the most common causes.

'Children in need'

The behaviour of adults around children - in the form of domestic violence, drinking and drug taking - was the most frequent explanation for councils having to intervene to protect 18,000 more children than a decade ago.

This was followed by factors such as poverty, housing problems and debt.

Figures published last week by the Department for Education showed 52,000 child-protection plans, identifying how to deal with children considered to be at risk, had been drawn up - a slight annual decline against a significant long-term increase.

These figures also showed domestic violence to be the most common factor for so-called "children in need" - much more so than issues such as abuse, gangs, trafficking or anti-social behaviour.

There are almost 400,000 "children in need" where there are concerns about their health or development and where they are at risk of being "significantly impaired" without extra support.

After domestic violence, the most common underlying problems are mental health issues, emotional abuse, drug and alcohol abuse.

Physical abuse, sexual abuse and sexual exploitation were all lower than the previous year.

Well, this is good news, at least, but I have serious doubts about the accuracy of the data. Not included, of course, are the sexual abuse inflicted upon children who are Gender Dysphoric. These should be included as sexually abused children, but the UK suffers too much from #PCMadness.

Funding pressure

But numbers of serious cases investigating fears of children suffering or facing "significant harm" have continued to climb.

There were more than 200,000 of these safeguarding inquiries - rising every year from 127,000 in 2012-13.

The Local Government Association is warning of the financial pressures on councils.

"Funding pressures are coinciding with huge increases in demand for support because of problems like hardship and family conflict," said Judith Blake, chairwoman of the LGA's children and young people board.

The Horrors of Child Prostitution in Ghana Where >100,000 Child Prostitutes Work

More than 100,000 children in Ghana work as prostitutes. Melphia, 13, is one of them. She lives in a slum and spends her nights in hotel rooms with businessmen, police officers and, increasingly, tourists.

By Sophia Bogner and Paul Hertzberg
Photo Gallery: Trafficking Children for Sex in Ghana Photos
Global Societies

Every evening, Melphia leaves a place locals refer to as "hell on earth" and goes somewhere even worse. To a hotel room where the curtains are always drawn. Melphia is 13 years old. She lives in a slum in Kumasi, the second-largest city in Ghana. And for the past three years, she has worked as a child prostitute.

Melphia has sex with up to five men per night: workers, businessmen, police officers -- and increasingly, tourists. She doesn't even know the names of most of her clients. What she does know is that "obronis," white men, pay more than Ghanaians. "Without the foreigners, child prostitution wouldn't be nearly as lucrative," says Martin Opoku Sekyere, who works as a volunteer to combat child prostitution in Kumasi.

For the past two years, the economy in the West African country has been growing more quickly again and things in Ghana have noticeably improved. This also means more people are coming into the country, such as Chinese investors and European tourists. And along with them come those interested in hiring prostitutes. Dr. George Oppong, head of the Ghana section for the NGO Defence for Children International's (DCI), for which Sekyere also works, says that nobody really knows how many children are currently prostituting themselves, though he estimates somewhere between 100,000 and 200,000. The youngest are just 9 years old.

Melphia looks younger than 13. She's small and thin and has elbows that stick out sharply. Like the other girls in the slum, she has a short afro that emphasizes her pretty, childish face. She has a hard time sitting still, pulling her knees in and searching her fingers for bits of her nails she hasn't yet chewed off.

Melphia (left) sitting on the steps of Martin Opoku Sekyere's office.

And then she begins telling her story, the sounds of the slum floating around her: drunks scream, Nigerian hip-hop blasts from old speakers and someone moans loudly during sex. It's close to 40 degrees Celsius (104 Fahrenheit) and the air is so humid that the walls inside the hut are sweating.

Melphia was 10 when she climbed onto a bus in her village, located about an hour from Kumasi. Because she was so young, she didn't need to pay anything for her ticket and it was only by chance that the bus ended up in Kumasi. She would have gone anywhere: Her only goal was to make money -- somewhere, somehow.

So Painful She Could Barely Walk

On her parents' farm there was never enough food for her and her 12 siblings to eat, she says. She attended primary school in her town, with her older sister's boyfriend financing her everyday costs. But when he went to Europe, there was no more money. Melphia could barely even read at that point, and instead of continuing to go to school, she headed to Kumasi.

Almost immediately upon arrival, she met a young man named Ali, the first person who spoke to her in Kumasi. A few hours later, he slept with her. It was her first time. Ali told her she could make money with sex, but Melphia didn't want to. Just sleeping with him was so painful that she could barely walk. She tried selling candy, but she couldn't get rid of the colorful Mentos she had bought with the last of her money. Then Ali told her about the Chinese. He said they would pay 25 euros ($28) to have sex with a small girl. He became her pimp.

This is her story as she tells it and it is impossible to confirm, in part because Melphia is no longer in touch with her family. This much, though, is certain: Melphia lives alone, without her family, in the Asafo Railroad slum, known to inhabitants simply as "BB." She speaks the Ghanaian language Twi and a bit of English. She works as a child prostitute and everything she owns fits into a small, black bag: An old Nokia cell phone with a broken display, two pairs of flip-flops, two outfits, a pair of gray socks.

All of her earnings vanish instantly. Much of it goes to her pimp, while the rest is spent on showers, her single meal per day and rent for the tiny hut she shares with four other girls. It's really more of a shack, maybe 6 square meters (65 square feet). Melphia is able to survive, but not more. "It is an illegal business from which too many people profit," says DCI's Sekyere. The hotel owners, the pimps, the drug dealers and the corrupt police officers -- they all stand to gain from the fact that Melphia and the other girls are selling their bodies for a couple of euros.

Martin Opoku Sekyere in his office in Kumasi

Sekyere actually heads the local employment office, but in his free time he fights for the children of Kumasi. He goes into the slum every day, speaking with the girls and trying to get them off the street. If one of them falls ill, he takes her to the hospital, with DCI covering the bill if possible. Sekyere notes the girls' names in a notebook: "Abena, 14; Mariam, 10; Lydia, 13; Josie, 11; Melphia, 13." Melphia has neither an ID nor a birth certificate, making Sekyere's notebook perhaps the only document where her name is recorded.

Like a Sauna

"My birthday is in May," Melphia says, adding that her ideal present would be "a bus ticket back to my mother." She misses her and says she can still remember her voice. Since leaving her village she hasn't heard from her family at all and she doesn't even have their phone number anymore. Her family thinks she's selling water and Mentos in Kumasi.

If they knew the truth, they would disown her, she says, and starts to cry. She quickly grabs a towel and a piece of soap, slips through the plastic curtain that functions as the shack's front door and joins the other girls on their way to the shower. It's 5 p.m. and Melphia has just woken up. As always, she went to bed when the sun came up and slept all day. The sun has been beating down on the corrugated iron and plastic of her hut for hours. Inside, it's like a sauna.

The ground in the slum is muddy and littered with plastic bags, bottles and food packaging that has been flattened by flip-fops. It is hard to tell where one shack ends and another begins because they are packed together so tightly. Laundry lines are drawn across the open sewage ditch, known as the "BB River." It smells like garbage and cooking fires, human feces and the decaying wares of the fishmongers.

Waiting for customers on the streets of Kumasi.

A shower costs 20 cents, for which Melphia gets five minutes in a roofless cement cell. "The showers, the sale of drugs, the prostitution, the rent for the shacks -- everything is organized by the same crew," Sekyere says. Nobody knows the name of the boss, or at least no one dares utter it, but his minions are everywhere -- slouched into plastic chairs or lying on the ground, lazy and stoned, wearing their gold chains and basketball jerseys.

The pimps come from similar circumstances as the girls. Each has one or two girls working for him, his "girlfriends," while the girls call their pimps their "boyfriend." Every once in a while, they get the girls a foreign john, because Ghanaians only pay between 5 and 7 euros, or they accompany the girls to the hotels. Otherwise, though, the "boyfriends" mostly just take their "girlfriends'" money.

During the day, Melphia wears a sleeveless T-shirt and wears a polka-dotted dress at night. She has started getting her period in the past year, but her body still looks like that of a child. And that's what she is: a child. She doesn't make any of her own decisions, instead being controlled by those around her. She reacts instead of acts. She doesn't have enough experience, education or imagination to picture another life, or even to formulate goals.

Standing and Waiting

When Melphia leaves the slum around 9 p.m., the sky is black and the air is full of flies. There is no electricity in BB, so Melphia lights her way with her mobile phone. The slum comes to an end after about 500 meters, turning into a maze of small alleys lined with two-story buildings housing small restaurants, cheap hotels and bars, from which colorful light and music emanate. Twelve-year-old girls, fully made up, stand at the tables smoking cigarettes. A woman changes her child's diaper under a streetlight. It smells of marijuana.

The so-called "BB River" in the slum where Melphia lives.

Melphia wanders past everybody, on her way to the main road where the big, red buses belonging to the company VIP are parked. During the day, the buses travel to Tamale, to Accra, to the hot north and to the seaside in the south. But at night, they block the view of what takes place behind them.

Behind the buses, the young girls stand and wait. A man of about 40 talks to Melphia, his speech slurred. She looks away, knowing that plenty of other men will come by. Violence is part of everyday life for the child prostitutes of Kumasi, which is another reason the girls prefer foreign customers: They don't just pay more, they also tend to hit the girls less frequently. A few months ago, a friend of Melphia's was driven to the outskirts of the city, the john wanting to have sex with her in a thorny bush. When she refused, he lashed out at her with a machete. She survived, but now has a large scar on her cheek.

Sekyere says that girls are also killed from time to time, but nobody really learns what exactly happened to them or who they even were. Like everything else, the violence in BB remains undocumented -- hardly anyone knows anything about anyone else. That is also true of Melphia and her friends: They are more like roommates and co-workers. And, of course, rivals.

Sekyere wipes the sweat from his brow and tries to explain what bothers him most: "Nothing will change if people keep having 15 children. The parents are thankful when one of them disappears. One less mouth they need to feed."

The shack that Melphia shares with four other girls.

Sometimes, Sekyere manages to get a child prostitute into a local school, but most of them disappear again. Though Sekyere can recall a few success stories -- of girls who managed, with his help, to become hairdressers. But there's not many of them. Most of his job consists of helping the girls in their day-to-day lives: distributing condoms, insisting that they should never have unprotected sex and explaining to them what happens with their money.

From between two buses, Melphia nervously watches what's going on across the street. There are prostitutes there too, grown women she is afraid of. "Last week," says Melphia, "they sent over a group of thugs." For the women, the competition from the girls had become too much.

Today, things are quiet. Women sell themselves on one side of the street, children on the other. "When I'm that old," Melphia says, pointing to the 20- and 30-somethings, "I would like to be a nurse." Or a hairdresser. "Or to have a family." She really doesn't care where she ends up. As long as it's not the other side of the street.

America's First FGM Case Falls Flat on Its Face

There are now no laws against FGM in USA

Law that outlawed female genital mutilation unconstitutional,

charges dropped against doctor

Max White, Scott Anderson

A federal judge has dismissed several charges against Dr. Jumana Nagarwala in the historic female genital mutilation case, ruling that the federal law against female genital mutilation is unconstitutional.

U.S. District Court Judge Bernard Friedman ruled that Congress did not have the power to enact a federal law that banned female genital mutilation in the United States.

Instead, Friedman made the argument that the law was too broad and it violated Congress' powers, as the law does not stand up to scrutiny under either the Necessary and Proper Clause or the Commerce Clause of the US Constitution.

He also found that laws penalizing Female Genital Mutilation should be handled at the state level, similar to laws regarding Criminal Sexual Conduct, battery or child abuse.  

Shannon Smith is the Defense Attorney for Dr. Nagarwala.  

She says the ruling is "absolutely a huge victory. When you actually studied the law they enacted, there was no constitutional basis for them to enact the law. It’s really an issue that should be left to the states."

Smith also claims the doctors did not perform Female Genital Mutilation, saying instead they performed a mild form of female circumcision.

There is no valid reason for female circumcision; it is neither cosmetic nor medicinal. It does nothing for the girl except to reduce her enjoyment of sex and thereby improve her cahnces of entering marriage as a virgin. The advantage of that is that she will get a higher price or a more desirable partner. This is more important in areas of great poverty than in America, but has become a tradition that has no place in the industrialized world.

"What Dr. Nagarwala was doing, if we had gone to trial, would have been vindicated that she was not mutilating little girls. While we’re happy with the victory and we’ll certainly take it, there’s a part of me that’s a little disappointed that the public isn’t going to see the evidence brought out at a trial to see that she was never guilty of it in the first place," Smith said.

The ruling comes after Friedman also dismissed a "conspiracy to transport minor with intent to engage in criminal sexual activity" charge in January. That was the only count that could have lead to life in prison for both Nagarwala and Dr. Fakhruddin Attar.

Attar provided the facilities for Nagarwala to do her business.

Friedman's ruling leaves two counts in place in the case. Nargarwala is charged with "conspiracy to travel with intent to engage in illicit sexual conduct," and four of the defendants are charged with conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding.

How can he leave the conspiracy charge in place when he has eliminated the 'illicit sexual conduct'? That makes no sense to me. I expect it will get thrown out and all that will be left of all the FGM charges is a conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding. 

Islam wins; girls lose! What else is new?

11 and Married: Malaysia Spars Over an Age-Old Practice of Child Brides

It's all good under Sharia

Norazila, 14, at her family’s restaurant in Gua Musang, Malaysia. She was dumbfounded when she learned her friend Ayu, 11, had married her 41-year-old father. Credit Lauren DeCicca for The New York Times

By Hannah Beech

GUA MUSANG, Malaysia — Norazila and Ayu were best friends and they shared everything that girls do: sleepovers, selfies, musings about cute boys.

But their friendship, which had blossomed in their placid hamlet in northern Malaysia, was destroyed late last month when Norazila, 14, discovered that Ayu, 11, had secretly become her father’s third wife.

“My best friend is my stepmother now,” said Norazila, whose family name is Che Abdul Karim, as she scrolled through her Facebook page filled with posts of the girls posing with adolescent pouts and fingers forming peace signs. “It doesn’t make any sense.”

Ayu’s marriage to Che Abdul Karim Che Abdul Hamid, a 41-year-old rubber trader with a prominent role at his mosque and a fleet of fancy cars, has reignited debate in Malaysia about the persistence of conservative Islamic traditions in this modern, multiethnic democracy.

In its election manifesto, the opposition coalition that won power in May promised to outlaw child marriage.

Nuraini Che Nawi, the first wife of Mr. Che Abdul Karim, showing a photograph of her husband’s marriage to Ayu, his third wife. Credit Lauren DeCicca for The New York Times

“This is a practice from many centuries ago and at this stage in Malaysia’s growth and development, child marriage is not acceptable,” said Charles Santiago, a lawmaker with the governing coalition.

But ever since outrage over Ayu’s case erupted on social media in Malaysia — after Mr. Che Abdul Karim’s second wife posted pictures on Facebook of the marriage ceremony with a sarcastic “happy wedding” message to him — critics say the new government, under the guise of religious freedom, has done too little to protect minors.

Malaysia’s deputy prime minister, who also serves as minister of women, family and community development, called the marriage an “alleged incident.” The minister, Wan Azizah Wan Ismail, said last week: “It would be unjust to lynch someone on social media because of how we feel about the issue.”

Ms. Wan Azizah, who has previously expressed opposition to child marriage, declined to discuss Ayu’s case because it involved continuing investigations by several government agencies, including for the crime of sexual grooming.

Last year, Malaysia criminalized sexual grooming, in which an adult creates an emotional bond with a child for the purpose of sexual exploitation.

“The girl is a victim, no doubt about it,” said Latheefa Koya, a prominent human rights lawyer. “Why are we dillydallying in protecting a child? The lack of serious urgency about this case is disturbing,” she added.

Siti Noor Azila, the second wife of Mr. Che Abdul Karim, with her two daughters in her family’s home in Gua Musang. She said she and her husband’s first wife had told him, “It is us or that girl.” Credit Lauren DeCicca for The New York Times

“As a Muslim, I am offended by the idea that we should not protect a child because of an assumption that this has something to do with Islam,” Ms. Latheefa said.

Ayu was taken to a hospital for a virginity test this month, but later the same day was reunited with her husband and has been with him often since, family members said.

“I love her,” Mr. Che Abdul Karim said by phone, stressing he would not “touch” his new wife until she was 16 years old.

For her part, Ayu said in a text message that she loved her husband, who has six children with his two other wives. She used a heart emoticon to describe him.

There is little doubt that Karim paid Ayu's parents for the right to marry her, and that Ayu will be able to assist her parents, at least a little, from her new position. She would be dishonouring her parents and not helping them if she were to refuse the marriage. She has little choice.

No minimum age under Sharia

Constitutionally, Malaysia’s legal system is bifurcated. Non-Muslim Malaysians, mostly from the nation’s ethnic Chinese and Indian minorities, are bound by civil law. Under the law, unless special consent is given by a high-ranking state minister, Malaysia’s non-Muslims cannot get married until they are 18.

The country’s ethnic Malay Muslim majority, however, must hew to Islamic law. A Shariah court must grant permission for minors below the age of 16 to marry. If a Muslim receives approval from Shariah authorities, there is no minimum age for marriage.

Ayu’s family’s home in Gua Musang. Child marriages in Malaysia are sometimes driven by the poverty of the bride’s family. Credit Lauren DeCicca for The New York Times

“In Islamic procedure, as long as a bride agrees, her parents agree and the girl has had her menstrual period, then a marriage is O.K.,” said Sayed Noordin, the imam at the Kuala Betis mosque that Mr. Che Abdul Karim attends.

“Che Karim is a good Muslim,” Mr. Sayed added. “He always comes for prayer, and he is a responsible man.”

But Mr. Che Abdul Karim did get in minor trouble for not following all the requirements for a child marriage. The Shariah Court in Kelantan this month fined him $450 for the infraction of marrying Ayu in neighboring Thailand without the court’s prior permission.

But he is a good Muslim!!!

Malaysian child rights activists said that about 15,000 girls under 15 were in child marriages in 2010. Globally, Unicef estimates that there are about 650 million girls and women of various faiths who were wed before they turned 18.

But an effort to outlaw underage unions for all Malaysians amid the toughening of child sex crime legislation failed in Parliament. Arguing against the ban, Shabudin Yahaya, a legislator from what was then the governing party, said that a girl as young as 9 could be ready for marriage if she had gone through puberty.

“Their body is already akin to them being 18 years old,” Mr. Shabudin, a former Shariah court judge, said in a parliamentary session. “So physically and spiritually, it is not a barrier for the girl to marry.”

Ms. Nuraini, right, in her family’s restaurant, where Ayu’s mother worked. Ayu would often go there with her mother. Credit Lauren DeCicca for The New York Times

Many child marriages in Malaysia are informal pairings that are not legally recognized by any court. But couples who do try to register their marriages find little resistance. A study by the Malaysia office of Unicef found that of 2,143 child marriage applications made to Shariah courts in seven Malaysian states from 2012 to 2016, 10 were refused.

In some instances, girls have ended up married to men charged with raping them. In 2015, a man from the eastern Malaysian state of Sarawak was charged with the statutory rape of a 14-year-old girl. But the case was dropped after he married her with permission from a Shariah court. Marital rape is not a crime in Malaysia. Or, almost anywhere in Islam!

Sometimes, Shariah courts accept underage unions to legitimize out-of-wedlock pregnancies, the Unicef report said. Other child marriages are driven by the poverty of the bride’s family.

In the case of Ayu, which is a shortened version of her full name to protect her identity, the income discrepancy was clear. Ayu is a Thai citizen whose father moved the family over the border to Gua Musang in Kelantan State to work as a rubber tapper. She grew up in a shabby, stilted wooden house with no running water.

Mr. Che Abdul Karim, by contrast, lives in a modern villa, his prized Mazda RX-8 parked in front. His first wife, Nuraini Che Nawi, runs a restaurant and grocery next door.

One of her employees was Ayu’s mother, Aminah Hitam. Because Ayu did not go to school, she often accompanied her mother to work.

Ms. Nuraini and her daughter, Norazila, center, at the restaurant. Credit Lauren DeCicca for The New York Times

Kelantan is one of Malaysia’s poorest and most conservative states. An Islamic political party has governed the state for decades, urging Muslim women to wear head scarves in public and ordering Arabic to be displayed on signs.

Is it one of Malaysia's poorest states because it has been governed by Muslims for decades? If so, it would join a lot of other states and countries in the same boat, unless they have lots of oil.

Mohamad Amar Nik Abdullah, Kelantan’s deputy chief minister and vice president of the Malaysian Islamic Party, stressed that child marriage was legal in Islam and said the country had more pressing social issues to address.

He said the existence of homosexuals and single parents in Malaysia “should be a concern for our government and society.”

Liberal Malays have questioned whether child marriage is truly an Islamic tradition or simply an outdated cultural practice. They have challenged the notion that the Prophet Muhammad married one of his wives when she was 6, saying that she was, in fact, much older.

“We cannot use a historical error about the Prophet Muhammad to condone child marriage,” said Ms. Latheefa, the human rights lawyer. “That’s sickening.”

Historical error, in the Quran? Quel blasphème!

Muslim-majority countries like Morocco and Egypt have outlawed child marriage, although underage unions remain common there.

The entrance to Gua Musang. The town is in Kelantan, one of Malaysia’s poorest and most conservative states. Credit Lauren DeCicca for The New York Times

This month, Malaysia’s Islamic affairs minister, Mujahid Yusof Rawa, said that his ministry had begun efforts to prohibit child marriage for Muslims, even as he cautioned that putting such a ban into effect would take time.

Meanwhile, Mr. Che Abdul Karim’s first two wives have banded together.

“We have said to him, it is us or that girl,” said Siti Noor Azila, Mr. Che Abdul Karim’s second wife. “We said, you choose. You cannot have all three of us.”

Malaysia follows general Islamic custom by allowing Muslim men up to four wives.

Ms. Siti Noor said her husband never gave her enough money to care for their four children, including one with spina bifida. She works as a baker to pay her bills.

But he's a good Muslim, right???

“He is so stingy with us, but he has enough money to get married to Ayu and take her on holiday,” Ms. Siti Noor said, referring to a trip to a hill retreat that Mr. Che Abdul Karim posted about on social media. Ayu, she said, was the only one of the wives allowed to ride in their husband’s Mazda sports car.

As Ms. Siti Noor spoke, two toddlers screamed for space in her lap. She looked exhausted.

“Their father never takes care of them,” she said. “He doesn’t even like children.”

Ms. Siti Noor corrected herself. “Except one,” she said. “That Ayu.”

Sharon Tan contributed reporting from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.