Friday, September 21, 2012

Women Raped by Sinai Traffickers




Between the Egypt’s borders and Israel lies The Sinai Desert. Here the act of people trafficking is prevalent in this area. Refugees form sub-Sudan Africa are smuggled to the desert where they get tortured and blackmailed. Instead of trafficking people, Bedouin gangs hold refugees captive and torture them and force their relatives to pay ransoms of thousand dollar amounts for their release. Women have it extremely horrible situations because many of them are raped by the traffickers and some become pregnant. This article incorporated a video interview of one woman, who was in this situation. In the interview she exclaimed that she would yell “I’m a virgin, I’m a virgin but they didn’t care.” When she made it to Israel after a long struggle she had an abortion because she didn’t want the child to be without a father their whole life. She said that she was raped several times by traffickers when she was held captive. In the interview she also claims: "They are cruel people," she said as tears ran down her cheeks. "They are criminal people and they don't have the human sense like us.” The traffickers would fool women by taking them to another room “to make coffee for smugglers “but in reality they rapped the women. The interviewed women said wanted to talk about her suffering to help prevent others from going through the same.
A violent act the traffickers perform is melting plastic onto the skin of victims. In the other video on this story it expresses the suffering of men. The man interviewed had scars from burns all over his torso and arms. He explained that he and his family were threatened by saying if his family doesn’t pay ransom then they would take his kidneys and sell them form money.
An aid group that provides food and shelter for these victim called The African Refugee Development Center said that once women reach Israel have been raped and ask for abortions. Women fear that they will be ostracized by their community so they keep quiet about their terrible struggles.
Opinion:
Watching the video interview of the woman was tough because she looked that she had no life because her human rights were completely stripped from her. I am glad she had the courage to do the interview despite the common fear of being ostracized. On top of the terrible acts that are performed to female victims they also feel like they are alone by having to keep quiet so their community doesn’t find out about being raped. They have no way to express their trauma. More aid needs to save these women. Traffickers are pure evil and need to be taken down for stealing human rights from people and their immoral acts. This interview needs to get more media attention so more aid can reach these victims. Military need to track down these traffickers and stop the rapping and treats. It will take a lot a work and negotiation. Some ransoms are as high as $60,000 showing that traffickers have quite a lot of power.

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