Le candide anime del filo-islamismo, come altri di varia estrazione e sensibilità, accusano, come tanti OscarLuigiScalfaroD'altriTempi, la società europea di essere fonte di turbamento e causa, essa stessa, delle violenze sessuali che gli allogeni non europei, in particolare musulmani, attuano nelle nostre città.

In realtà è risaputo come la violenza venga usata abitualmente in Africa o nei paesi islamici, sia per quanto riguarda fatti collaterali a guerre, sia per quanto riguardo tratta delle schiave, sia più semplici stupri, sia la pratica del rapimento di ragazze minorenni e di matrimoni sempre con minorenni. Queste ultime, pratiche che in qualche modo riassumono le altre, dato che è evidente come il matrimonio con una ragazza minorenne, magari di estrazione minore, non sia vero amore, ma una forma di dominio.

Non è di certo la liberalità europea (colpevole d'altro, semmai) ad essere la causa, quanto la forma mentis di questi individui.

Leggetevi un po' di recenti articoli:

Fly-by-night bridegrooms

The practice of minor Muslim girls being married off to rich and old Arab men continues. A look at dowry practices.


The long-winding narrow lanes in the desperately poor areas of Hyderabad; the dark, claustrophobic, one-room houses; the deadened souls and the emotionally-drained hearts know it all and yet won’t speak. In fact, they will deny it. Because, if they accept the truth, then they would be forced to confront the bitter truth: that their girl children are available for as little as Rs 5,000 to satisfy the lust of doddering old Arab men.

Sixteen-year-old Haseena who was married to a 75-year-old Arab, Jorani, for Rs 10,000 now forms a sordid chapter in the social history of Hyderabad. She made history when she ran away from him, traumatised. When her parents took her back after two days, Jorani refused to accept her and harassed the family to return his money (of the Rs 10,000 he paid, the broker had taken away Rs 5,000). Haseena lodged a police complaint and for the first time in the 30-odd years during which countless, short-term marriages of impoverished Muslim girls to rich old Arab men took place every other day, police booked a case, arrested Jorani who had married two girls in two weeks, and jailed him.

Terrified by the publicity, Haseena’s family fled the city and their angry neighbours chased away the media. Assistant Commissioner of Police A K Khan said last year they had picked up two Arabs, aged 80 and 67, for marrying girls for short terms, but could not proceed as the girls’ families refused to cooperate. Haseena’s complaint came as god-send. Police investigation revealed a well-oiled racket that was run by a “partnership” of religious leaders or qazis and a network of brokers, travel agents and hotels owners who look around, identify and convince parents of young girls. One of the three qazis identified as culprits by police, was even was running a “home” with “five-star” facilities to house the Arab men and their brides. “The community should step in a big way to deal with the issue,” said Mr Khan.

Dr Sunita Krishnan, who heads an anti human-trafficking NGO Prajwala, said the community refuses to accept that a large number of girls who marry “outside the country” end up in the red-light areas of Mumbai and Pune. Parents are gullible enough to marry off their daughters on phone, hand them the nikahnama, and send them off with the broker to start a new life “abroad”. A few months later, the parents get a cassette in which the girl says she is well and the parents rest happy that all is well.

Abbasi was 14 when she was married off. She was rescued from Kamatipura, Mumbai’s red-light area and subsequently rehabilitated by Prajwala. She recounts her story: “Someone abroad had a marriage proposal for me. The nikah was the phone. I said kubool (accept) on the phone. The next day I was sent off to Mumbai. After three days I was sent to wrong places… I told them I will not do what they say… they started beating and torturing me… I wanted to make a phone call but they did not allow me... They kept on beating me... I tried to run away but they caught me... There were many girls like me who were also tortured similarly by the sethanis (madams)…”

Prajwala began to investigate these marriages. Supported by the Confederation of Voluntary Agencies, a Hyderabad-based NGO that works with the Muslim community in several states, it brought out a study after examining 75 cases of “outside” marriages. Of these, as many as 40 families did not know for three years where or how their daughters were; 20 marriages lasted between three days and three months; only 15 had evidence such as photos, showing the girl living with her husband in a foreign country. These are the “culprits” who encourage a bahar ki shaadi. Activists believe a few thousand girls have “disappeared” after such marriages and the parents are too poor even to trace them.

Wretched poverty, the spread of the dowry system and increasing “commercialisation” of marriages in the Muslim community are some factors that have encouraged short-term contract marriages, says Gazanfar Ali Khan, assistant editor with the Urdu newspaper Rehnuma-e-Deccan. “A contract marriage has no sanctity in Islam. These are efforts to legitimise debauchery. I understand the newly married girl not only signs the nikah paper but also the divorce paper…this is haram (illegitimate) since there is no iddat period (40 days)... this is the worst possible exploitation of a Muslim girl,” he says. He believes qazis are the main culprits as they take advantage of a person’s poverty and commit a fraud rather than perform a marriage.

Sunita identifies yet another factor, that is the religious and social acceptance of talaq. Above all, Sunita says, the girl child is not valued. “If a girl child is sold or her life ruined, it is not a national loss, that’s why this is a non-issue, both for community and to society,” she says.

This culture of silence, which is the main reason for the perpetuation of the exploitation and abuse of the Muslim girl child (as in other communities) has to be stopped. Only community activism can be effective, she says.

MUMBAI: Mumbai has emerged as a big centre of this racket where old Arabs as well as people belonging to other nationalities, like Algerians and blacks, come for “some fun”. Mohammed Ali Road, Nagpada, Mahim and some other areas have many guest houses. Such alliances are backed a small group of unscrupulous Kazis and agents. In one place in the Nagpada area a kazi receives groups of people, mostly Arabs and Algerians who are very old. He prepares a nikahnama and talaqnama simultaneously, marrying the old Arab to the victim, who is always a minor. The fee is from Rs 10,000 to to Rs 1 lakh or more, depending on the girl’s beauty. The client then spends one or two nights with the girl and then goes away. The girl’s parents are paid half the amount and the balance is pocketed by the agents.

A leading Muslim social activist Shahajadi Hakim says: “The police can easily keep track of the movements of visiting foreigners, but they are not doing enough.” The involvement of mafia gangs in this racket are not ruled out.
Dowry is prevalent in Marathwada while in Mumbai, it is prevalent among UP Muslims.

LUCKNOW: Jamina Ahmed, a research scholar who is studying gloabalisation and social change among the Muslim community does not believe that only Muslim girls from the lower socio-economic strata are married off to affluent middle-aged men. “Even among the well-off you will see a preference for men who are affluent. The Middle East holds a special fascination. So the convergence of economics and religion becomes very potent. The trend is marked in those regions which have had a tradition of men going to the region to seek their fortunes.”

On why such cases are not so prevalent among Muslims in places like Lucknow, school principal Mrs Ayesha Khan, believes the community is tradition-bound.
THIRTEEN YEARS LATER...

Nothing much has changed for Ameena

Ameena made headlines in 1991 and was the first public face of the exploitation and abuse of young Muslim girls from impoverished homes.

The 11-year-old had been married off to a 50-something Arab and was flying out of the country when she was rescued by an alert air-hostess.

Thirteen long years later Ameena’s situation is hardly any better. She married Abdul Majid last year, an autorickshaw driver, who is at least 20 years her senior, and has a three-month-old baby girl Husna. She lives in a dingy two-room house in a slum in the Mushirabad locality in Hyderabad. She recollects the past unwillingly. Her father, a rickshaw-puller with eight children was “misled” by some neighbours, into marrying her off. The subsequent glare of publicity forced him to leave the Old City with his family.

“He would have been living,” says Ameena softly, apparently carrying yet another burden of guilt that she was the cause of his apart from notoriety and unwanted publicity. Ameena slipped out of public memory as also that of the state. The Supreme Court had ordered the state to get Ameena educated, monitor her progress regularly and ensure some economic benefits for the family. She was enrolled into a government school. She dropped out. Neither did any official visit her nor was any assistance given to the family. She was forgotten till yet another old Arab came to Hyderabad looking for a young virgin.

Ameena was once again forced to live her nightmare as she was tracked down by the media. There is no escape for Ameena as long as poor girls continue to be preyed upon, with the consent of the family, the community, the society and the state.
ARABI KALYANAMS AND MYSORE MARRIAGES



Arabi kalyanams (Arab marriages) and Mysore kalyanams (grooms from Mysore) were once synonymous with the backward Muslim communities of mostly Kozhikode, Malappuram and Wayanad districts in north Kerala. With the collapse of active trade links between Arabs and Malabar, the infamous Arabi kalyanam is believed to have ended though some of its critics say that Arabs still come and go and the practice continues on the sly. Arayadan Shoukath, writer and producer of last year’s state government award-winning Malayalam film Paatom Onnu Oru Vilaapom (Lesson one: A wail) says that ‘Mysore marriages’ are still on especially among Sunnis who largely constitute the uneducated lower middle-class strata of the community. “The impression is that young men from Mysore charge less dowry. They come to Malappuram and Wayanad with a letter of authorisation purportedly from their mosque committee and marry teenage girls. Many of them abandoned their wives once they became mothers,” he says. But there are many views. According to a lawyer and councillor of the Kozhikode municipal corporation, Noorbeena Rasheed, Arabs have helped many families by taking them back to the Gulf and giving them jobs. “In our community, women cannot remain unmarried. For an ordinary lower class family it’s difficult to arrange for a dowry. So they fall prey to these rich Arabs.’’ Norbeena, who has fought cases for such women, told Deccan Herald that many have also ditched these hapless girls. “However, now an awareness has grown in the community, especially now that women’s organisations have taken up the issue,’’ she claims.

Arabs often reach Thiruvananthapuram with the help of local Malayalis employed in the Gulf. “It often depends on the intentions of the local people employed there who bring them,’’ she says. As it turns out, many Arabs use the opportunity for pleasure and abandon them once these girls lose their sex appeal. Subair, a young trader in Malappuram, says “the high priests of the commmunity can halt this system if they wish. But they ask: who is going to marry these girls?’’

Shoukath, whose film threw some troubling questions at the community chiefs, says “the system has spawned several ills. Some of the local boys keep on marrying using this dowry. He uses the dowry from a prospective bride to settle dues with his old wife’s family. I am happy that my film has been well received by my people and the world outside. I wish there is a speedy end to this social malady.''
http://www.deccanherald.com/deccanhe...202004/sl2.asp

One minor girl, many Arabs
Mohammed Wajihuddin
[ 4 Sep, 2005 1141hrs ISTTIMES NEWS NETWORK ]


They are old predators with new vigour. Often bearded, invariably in flowing robes and expensive turbans. The rich, middle-aged Arabs increasingly stalk the deprived streets of Hyderabad like medieval monarchs would stalk their harems in days that we wrongly think are history. These Viagra enabled Arabs are perpetrating a blatant crime under the veneer of nikaah, the Islamic rules of marriage. Misusing the sanctioned provision which allows a Muslim man to have four wives at a time, many old Arabs are not just marrying minors in Hyderabad, but marrying more than one minor in a single sitting.

"The Arabs prefer teenage, virgin brides," says Jameela Nishat, who counsels and sensitises young women against the malaise. Two of her volunteers, Shahida Yasmeen and Tasneem Sultana, in their early twenties experienced the trauma of being scanned by an old Arab. A few months ago, they accompanied an undercover television reporter who was following these sham marriages. They reached a home where half a dozen other prospective brides were gathered. "It resembled a brothel. The girls were paraded before the Arab who would lift the girls’ burqa, run his fingers through their hair, gaze at their figures and converse through an interpreter," says Yasmeen recalling the day.

Most girls inspected by the Arab were minors, and forced by a complex union of their parents and Islamic clerics to yield to the preliminary probes of the Arab.



Curiously, the high priests of the All India Muslim Personal Law Board (AIMPLB) and the fatwa brigade of Darul Uloom Deoband, who are gearing up to defend the legality of Islamic Courts in the Supreme Court, seem to have shut their eyes to this phenomenon that is aided and abetted by Hyderabad's Qazis or clerics.

Many Qazis prepare both marriage and divorce formalities together. While marriages require the grooms to be present, divorces are a bit different. A talaaq can be given verbally, through a letter, an email, telegraph, phone or even sms. "Many talaaqs are coming through sms these days," confirms Mufti Abdul Ahad Falahi, a Qazi at a Darul Qaza in Mumbai. "If a woman who has received an intimation of talaaq doubts its veracity, she can check with her husband. If he accepts he has sent the message, the talaaq will be valid."

Most Qazis solemnise these sham marriages in complete violation of Islamic principles of nikaah and talaaq. A woman cannot be married off to another man unless her first husband gives her a divorce, or she has sought khula (separation) and has completed idat (a period of three menstrual cycles from the day of the talaaq).

Maulana Hameeduddin Aqil, head of a prominent Muslim body Millat-e-Islamia, dismisses such marriages as sinful. "They are committing a sin. It's not nikaah, it's prostitution by another name," says the frail, seventy five year old.



Impoverished and easily lured by the promise of a better future, many Muslim parents are increasingly pushing their daughters into this flesh trade that has a convenient respectability of an Islamic marriage. The Arabs, in collusion with the greedy Qazis, marry girls for a short period. In some cases, for a night.

On the first of August, forty five year old Al Rahman Ismail Mirza Abdul Jabbar, a Sheikh from the UAE, approached a broker in these matters, seventy year old Zainab Bi in the walled city, near the historic Char Minar. The broker procured Farheen Sultana and Hina Sultana, aged between thirteen and fifteen, for twenty thousand rupees. Then he hired Qazi Mohammed Abdul Waheed Qureshi to solemnise the marriage. The Qazi, taking advantage of an Islamic provision, married the girls off to the Arab. After the wedding night with the girls, the Arab left at dawn.

The girls’ parents were promised their share of the booty by the broker but when it didn’t, they went to the media. The girls are not too disturbed by the whole episode. "The Arab would have given us money. We can’t marry an Indian because our parents are too poor to pay dowry," the girls told Noorjahan Sidddiqui, a co-ordinator with Confederation of Voluntary Association, a Hyderabad-based NGO.



Muslim families that cannot afford to match the dowry demands of Indian grooms, are the first preys of old Arab grooms who not only give them the sanctity of marriage but also thousands of rupees. Unlike in India, in the Arab countries, it's the boys who pay girls the dowry. While rich Arabs go West to get white brides, transitory or otherwise, those with modest revenue streams look towards the East, especially Hyderabad where it seems, a well-oiled machinery is in place.

Hyderabad has a long history with Arabs. During their heydays, the Nizams (1724-1948) recruited many Arabs in their army. Subsequently, some of them guarded the Nizams’ coffers and their harems too. Many Arabs married local girls and settled in the Barkas area of Hyderabad (it resembles an Arab street even today).

Muslim politicians in the city never took the issue seriously. "It’s not on the poll agenda of any politician," says Mazhar Hussain, director of Confederation of Voluntary Associations, a social welfare outfit. Even Majlis-e-Ittihadul Muslameen, the party that Hyderabad’s Muslims have voted repeatedly has done nothing about it.



"You cannot deny that the fortunes of many families have changed through such marriages," a r g u e s MIM’s seventy three year old president Sultan Salahuddin O w a i s i , seated at his palatial bu n g a l ow situated at a distance from the filthy slums of his faithful voters. Not politicians, not Islamic clerics, not even a majority of citizens, it appears, are too angered by the issue.

In the middle of this small world that looks part victimised and part practical, is a local mosque where a Friday sermon is coming to an end. A lanky imam reads out an "important" announcement: A Muslim body invites the faithful to discuss the evil effects of Television.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/a...,prtpage-1.cms