BAGHDAD // With her family mired in deepening poverty, Sajida Mohammad was happy enough that her father accepted the proposal of marriage when it came. The man who would become her husband was a stranger to them all, but he promised financial help and there seemed to be no other options.
It was, however, a decision the 28-year-old Iraqi woman came to bitterly regret because, within a month, her hopes had collapsed and the newlywed found herself being sold as a prostitute by her spouse.
"For a short time he was nice to me, and did give my family some money and that was good," she said. "Then we moved house, to a small apartment and one day he invited some friends over and told me I must do anything they wanted, even if it was something that should only be between a man and his wife.
"I rejected the idea, but my husband was drunk and he beat me."
According to Ms Mohammad, the attack was so severe that she lost consciousness. After recovering, she said, her husband laid down the law: she would work for him and have sex with whomever he brought back to their flat in Karrada, in central Baghdad. If she complained, he would stop giving money to her parents or even kill her.
"I didn't have any choice and so I did what he told me," Ms Mohammad explained. "I lived that kind of life for a year. I slept with any man he brought to me. I didn't see any way to escape from it, and I couldn't tell anyone what was happening."
In Iraq, as in other Middle Eastern countries, it is not uncommon for the victims of sexual crimes to be heavily stigmatised by what has happened to them. Women who are raped are often deemed to have sullied their family's reputation and can be disowned or even murdered by their own relatives in so-called honour killings.
For that reason, Ms Mohammad suffered in silence, refusing to say anything to her parents or sisters. The ordeal only came to an end by chance when, little more than 12 months after she was married, the police came to search her home. They had arrested and imprisoned her husband on terrorism charges.
As a result of the police investigation, Ms Mohammad discovered the man she had married had been part of a gang involved in prostitution. He had a number of wives and a number of identities. She had never even known his real name.
While the authorities dealt with her case, she met someone from the Baghdad Women Organisation (BWO), a group of activists who campaign for women's rights and provide practical care for those in need, including women who have been sold into prostitution. Volunteers helped her get a divorce and safely reunited her with her family, which welcomed her back into their fold.
Ms Mohammad described herself as "recovering", explaining that she still bore the scars from her ordeal. "This kind of thing did not just happen to me, it has happened to many others, and there is no one to protect women from being put through this kind of hell," she said. If it had not been that her husband was involved in other criminal activity, she said, she had no doubt that she would still be trapped with him.
Although no official figures are available for such incidents, Lisa Nisan, head of BWO, said the trade in women forced into prostitution had "flourished" since the US-led invasion of 2003 and was getting worse. According to her estimate, at least 200 Iraqi women were sold into sex slavery annually, a number she believed was rising.
"We have been involved in more than 200 cases of abuse and prostitution" since the fall of Saddam, she said in an interview. "Iraqi women and children are cheap and end up being sold to brothels in the Gulf and even Europe.
"There are well-structured organisations behind this and there are some government officials who facilitate their work by providing paperwork, especially for those women who are transferred outside of the country."
Ms Nisan criticised the Iraqi authorities for not doing more to stop the trade or deal with its consequences. "We have warned the government about this," she said. "Yet still we rely on donations from Iraqi businessmen, some humanitarian organisations and even Iraqi MPs who give us money from their own pocket. We get no funding from the government."
On the ground there is little sign of this type of trafficking stopping or even slowing down. Umm Habib works as a matchmaker in east Baghdad's Zafraniyah neighbourhood, a semi-traditional role by which men wishing to marry can be found a suitable wife. The would-be husbands hand over a fee and specifications and, using their knowledge of the local women, the matchmaker tries to find a suitable candidate and make the necessary introductions.
"The truth is that some of the men who come to me are surely working as traffickers," Umm Habib said. "But it's not something that I can find out beforehand, I only hear about it afterwards. The woman might disappear and I only know about it when the family comes to me and asks where their daughter or sister has gone."
The 58-year-old, who sees herself as an important social catalyst in modern-day Iraq, said some of her clients had been government officials who come to look for "beautiful, young poor girls" and whom she suspected might have been involved in trafficking.
"Most of my customers are legitimate," she said. "But it is hard to tell and I think I've had some government officials who have come for girls and who have sold them into prostitution.
"Conditions are hard now in Iraq and society today is making my work more in demand, not less."
nlatif@thenational.ae
Call of Duty: Black Ops 6
Developer: Treyarch, Raven Software
Publisher: Activision
Console: PlayStation 4 & 5, Windows, Xbox One & Series X/S
Rating: 3.5/5
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
Mercer, the investment consulting arm of US services company Marsh & McLennan, expects its wealth division to at least double its assets under management (AUM) in the Middle East as wealth in the region continues to grow despite economic headwinds, a company official said.
Mercer Wealth, which globally has $160 billion in AUM, plans to boost its AUM in the region to $2-$3bn in the next 2-3 years from the present $1bn, said Yasir AbuShaban, a Dubai-based principal with Mercer Wealth.
“Within the next two to three years, we are looking at reaching $2 to $3 billion as a conservative estimate and we do see an opportunity to do so,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Mercer does not directly make investments, but allocates clients’ money they have discretion to, to professional asset managers. They also provide advice to clients.
“We have buying power. We can negotiate on their (client’s) behalf with asset managers to provide them lower fees than they otherwise would have to get on their own,” he added.
Mercer Wealth’s clients include sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and insurance companies among others.
From its office in Dubai, Mercer also looks after Africa, India and Turkey, where they also see opportunity for growth.
Wealth creation in Middle East and Africa (MEA) grew 8.5 per cent to $8.1 trillion last year from $7.5tn in 2015, higher than last year’s global average of 6 per cent and the second-highest growth in a region after Asia-Pacific which grew 9.9 per cent, according to consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In the region, where wealth grew just 1.9 per cent in 2015 compared with 2014, a pickup in oil prices has helped in wealth generation.
BCG is forecasting MEA wealth will rise to $12tn by 2021, growing at an annual average of 8 per cent.
Drivers of wealth generation in the region will be split evenly between new wealth creation and growth of performance of existing assets, according to BCG.
Another general trend in the region is clients’ looking for a comprehensive approach to investing, according to Mr AbuShaban.
“Institutional investors or some of the families are seeing a slowdown in the available capital they have to invest and in that sense they are looking at optimizing the way they manage their portfolios and making sure they are not investing haphazardly and different parts of their investment are working together,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Some clients also have a higher appetite for risk, given the low interest-rate environment that does not provide enough yield for some institutional investors. These clients are keen to invest in illiquid assets, such as private equity and infrastructure.
“What we have seen is a desire for higher returns in what has been a low-return environment specifically in various fixed income or bonds,” he said.
“In this environment, we have seen a de facto increase in the risk that clients are taking in things like illiquid investments, private equity investments, infrastructure and private debt, those kind of investments were higher illiquidity results in incrementally higher returns.”
The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds, said in its 2016 report that has gradually increased its exposure in direct private equity and private credit transactions, mainly in Asian markets and especially in China and India. The authority’s private equity department focused on structured equities owing to “their defensive characteristics.”
NO OTHER LAND
Director: Basel Adra, Yuval Abraham, Rachel Szor, Hamdan Ballal
Stars: Basel Adra, Yuval Abraham
Rating: 3.5/5
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Nepotism is the name of the game
Salman Khan’s father, Salim Khan, is one of Bollywood’s most legendary screenwriters. Through his partnership with co-writer Javed Akhtar, Salim is credited with having paved the path for the Indian film industry’s blockbuster format in the 1970s. Something his son now rules the roost of. More importantly, the Salim-Javed duo also created the persona of the “angry young man” for Bollywood megastar Amitabh Bachchan in the 1970s, reflecting the angst of the average Indian. In choosing to be the ordinary man’s “hero” as opposed to a thespian in new Bollywood, Salman Khan remains tightly linked to his father’s oeuvre. Thanks dad.
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Test
Director: S Sashikanth
Cast: Nayanthara, Siddharth, Meera Jasmine, R Madhavan
Star rating: 2/5
'My Son'
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Starring: James McAvoy, Claire Foy, Tom Cullen, Gary Lewis
Rating: 2/5
The specs: 2018 Ducati SuperSport S
Price, base / as tested: Dh74,900 / Dh85,900
Engine: 937cc
Transmission: Six-speed gearbox
Power: 110hp @ 9,000rpm
Torque: 93Nm @ 6,500rpm
Fuel economy, combined: 5.9L / 100km
Real estate tokenisation project
Dubai launched the pilot phase of its real estate tokenisation project last month.
The initiative focuses on converting real estate assets into digital tokens recorded on blockchain technology and helps in streamlining the process of buying, selling and investing, the Dubai Land Department said.
Dubai’s real estate tokenisation market is projected to reach Dh60 billion ($16.33 billion) by 2033, representing 7 per cent of the emirate’s total property transactions, according to the DLD.
Batti Gul Meter Chalu
Producers: KRTI Productions, T-Series
Director: Sree Narayan Singh
Cast: Shahid Kapoor, Shraddha Kapoor, Divyenndu Sharma, Yami Gautam
Rating: 2/5
'Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore'
Rating: 3/5
Directed by: David Yates
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MATCH INFO
Maratha Arabians 107-8 (10 ovs)
Lyth 21, Lynn 20, McClenaghan 20 no
Qalandars 60-4 (10 ovs)
Malan 32 no, McClenaghan 2-9
Maratha Arabians win by 47 runs
