[Mb-civic] FW: "Arabian Sex Tourism"

[Golsorkhi]

------ Forwarded Message
From: Kay Zafar <kzii at swbell.net>
Date: Tue, 11 Oct 2005 09:56:20 -0500
To: G-1 <kzii at swbell.net>
Subject: FW: "Arabian Sex Tourism"

> 
> 
>  
> Arabian Sex Tourism
> by Daniel Pipes
> FrontPageMagazine.com
> October 7, 2005
> http://www.danielpipes.org/article/3022
> <http://www.danielpipes.org/article/3022>
> 
> Indian media have been publishing exposés documenting the foul behavior of
> Gulf Arabs in the southern Indian town of Hyderabad "Fly-by-night bridegrooms
> <http://www.deccanherald.com/deccanherald/jun202004/sl2.asp> ," by R
> Akhileshwari in the Deccan Herald and "One minor girl, many Arabs
> <http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/1219601.cms?headline=One~minor
> ~girl,~many~Arabs~> ," by Mohammed Wajihuddin in the Times of India are two
> important examples. Wajihuddin sets the stage:
> 
> 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. 
> 
> (I have silently corrected some typos). Wajihuddin then specifies the problem:
> 
> 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.
> 
> The Arabs usually "marry" the girls for short periods, sometimes just a single
> night. In fact, Wajihuddin reports, marriage and divorce formalities are often
> prepared at the same time, thereby expediting the process for all involved.
> Akhileshwari notes that "their girl children are available for as little as
> 5,000 rupees to satisfy the lust of doddering old Arab men." Five thousand
> rupees, by the way, equals just a bit over US$100.
> 
> An Indian television program recently reported on a show-casing of eight
> prospective brides, most of them minors, at which they were offered up to
> their Arab suitors. "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," recalls one of Nishat's
> assistants. 
> 
> Wajihuddin also offers a specific case history:
> 
> 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 [DP comment: that equals US$450]. Then
> he hired Qazi [DP comment: an Islamic judge, usually spelled qadi in English]
> 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.
> 
> So much for that "marriage."
> 
> Sunita Krishnan, head of an anti human-trafficking organization, Prajwala,
> makes the only too-obvious point that girl children are 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." With the exception of
> Maulana Hameeduddin Aqil, the head of Millat-e-Islamia (a local organization
> <http://www.thehinduimages.com:8080/hindu/photoDetail.do?photoId=3981455> ,
> apparently not connected the notorious Pakistani terrorist group
> <http://www.satp.org/satporgtp/countries/pakistan/terroristoutfits/Ssp.htm> ),
> who speaks out against these sham marriages ("They are committing a sin. It's
> not nikaah, it's prostitution by another name"), the Islamic authorities in
> India are almost all silent about this travesty of the Shari'a.
> 
> For their part, Muslim politicians in the city of Hyderabad apparently could
> care less. "It's not on the poll agenda of any politician," says Mazhar
> Hussain, director of a social welfare organization, the Confederation of
> Voluntary Associations. The Majlis-e-Ittihadul Muslameen, the main party of
> Hyderabad's Muslims, is blissfully unconcerned: "You cannot deny that the
> fortunes of many families have changed through such marriages," MIM's
> president, Sultan Salahuddin Owaisi, cheerfully points out.
> 
> Comments: 
> 
> (1) Ironically, the girls thus proffered appear all to be Muslim ­ no Hindus
> or others need apply.
> 
> (2) The behavior of Arabs in India in some way parallels that of Japanese and
> Westerners in Thailand, with the notable difference that the Indian case
> involves marriage, an emphasis on virginity, and local authorities seemingly
> pleased with providing their minor girls for sex tourism.
> 
> (3) Arabian sex tourism is not exclusive to India but also takes place in
> other poor countries.
> 
> (4) This trade in persons is merely one dimension of a problem that prevails
> through Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states (for another dimension, see "Saudis
> Import Slaves to America <http://www.danielpipes.org/article/2687> ").
> 
> (5) Concubinage, forced labor, indentured servitude, slavery ­ these deep
> problems are nowhere near being addressed in the Gulf region, much less
> solved. Indeed, one prominent Saudi theologian
> <http://www.danielpipes.org/blog/123>  has gone so far as to state that
> "Slavery is a part of Islam" and whoever says it should be abolished "is an
> infidel." So long as such attitudes can be articulated publicly, without
> censure, abuses are certain to continue.
> 
> (6) The hypocrisy of this trade is perhaps its vilest aspect. Better
> prostitution, frankly acknowledged, than religiously-sanctioned fake
> marriages, for the former is understood to be a vice while the latter parades
> as a virtue. 
> 
> (7) Wajihuddin compares the Arabian men to "medieval monarchs" and the analogy
> is apt. These transactions, involving Muslim minors and conducted under the
> auspices of Islamic law, point yet again to the dominance of premodern ways in
> the Muslim world and the urgent need to modernize the Islamic religion.
> 
> To comment on this article, please go to
> http://www.danielpipes.org/article/3022#comment
> <http://www.danielpipes.org/article/3022#comment>
> To see the Daniel Pipes archive, go to http://www.DanielPipes.org
> <http://www.danielpipes.org/>
> 
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