The Guardian makes no mention, of course, of the fact that this girl's status as a slave and a concubine is sanctioned by Islamic law. "And all married women are forbidden unto you save those captives whom your right hands possess..." (Qur'an 4:24). Until that changes, hardline Muslims will reject rulings like this. It will be interesting to see how this plays out in Niger.
"Niger guilty in landmark slavery case," from The Guardian, October 27:
A court in west Africa today convicted Niger of failing to protect a young girl sold into slavery in a landmark judgment with potentially far-reaching implications for the tens of thousands of people who remain enslaved in the region.The justice arm of the Economic Community of West African States (Ecowas) ruled that Niger, where slavery remains common in rural areas despite being officially abolished five years ago, had failed in its obligations to protect Hadijatou Mani.
Mani, who brought the case with the assistance of British-based anti-slavery groups, has said she was sold into slavery at the age of 12 for around £325 and regularly beaten and sexually abused.
"I am very happy with this decision," she told reporters after the ruling was announced, Reuters reported.
The court, sitting in the Niger capital of Niamey, ordered the state to pay her 10 million CFA francs (about £12,000) in damages and accumulated interest.
The ruling by the panel of judges from Senegal, Mali and Togo will bring hope to the more than 40,000 people being held as slaves in rural Niger and across the region.
Speaking before the judgment, Mani said: "It was very difficult to challenge my former master and to speak out when people see you as nothing more than a slave. But I knew that this was the only way to protect my child from suffering the same fate. Nobody deserves to be enslaved."
The life of a sadaka, or sexual slave, was described in detail by Mani during the court case. She explained how she had been born a slave, sold and then transferred as a child against her mother's wishes to a man named El Hadj Souleymane Naroua. She testified that she had been raped at 13 and constantly forced to have sex with her 63-year-old master, who owned seven other slaves.
In 2005, two years after Niger enacted a law forbidding slavery, Mani was presented with a "liberation certificate". This proved to be worthless, as she was immediately forced into a "wahiya marriage", with the status of a concubine....
This will continue to happen. She was sold for 325 Euros, which is I think like $175. That's disgusting. Slavery still takes place in Niger, Mail, Mauritania, every Arabian nation, Sudan, Egypt, and Pakistan, where it will likely be legalized. It will continue as long as Islam reigns or is tolerated. Shoot, it happens in America when we allow Afghans in. It's the atural outcome of an ideology in which only 5% of the world's population is considered to be human, and even their lives are all but worthless. Disgusting. And if it's not slavery it's a bunch of other intolerable human rights violations. Shoot, all women live their entire lives as slaves under Islam. It's just a question of who owns them outright.
“The fact that in Mohammedan law every woman must belong to some man as his absolute property - either as a child, a wife, or a concubine - must delay the final extinction of slavery until the faith of Islam has ceased to be a great power among men . . . No stronger retrograde force exists in the world.” -Winston Churchill, The River War, original edition of 1899.
From article: 'Nobody deserves to be enslaved'.
True enough, too bad no one told this to Mohammad.
That's probably because no one then would risk being beheaded, for mentioning this to the maximum leader.
I really have to read "The River War"..........
Tanstaafl, it's available free on Gutenberg:
http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/4943
Got it!
Thanks, Vee!
"And all married women are forbidden unto you save those captives whom your right hands possess..." (Qur'an 4:24).
............................
More Islamic "morality". Consensual extramarital relationships are condemned in the harshed terms imaginable--being caught results in lashings or a death sentence. But married women are not forbidden if you *enslave and rape them*. Funny, this doesn't sound like any "traditional morality" I'm familiar with--despite our being told how much "conservative" Muslims have in common with "conservative" Jews and Christians.
from above:
"The life of a sadaka, or sexual slave, was described in detail by Mani during the court case. She explained how she had been born a slave, sold and then transferred as a child against her mother's wishes to a man named El Hadj Souleymane Naroua. She testified that she had been raped at 13 and constantly forced to have sex with her 63-year-old master, who owned seven other slaves."
Well, it's clear from this account that Mani's horrifying situation wasn't some sort of anomaly--she was born into slavery, sold as a slave, and surrounded by fellow slaves. She is now concerned about her child becoming a slave. This is a whole system of slavery.
more:
"In 2005, two years after Niger enacted a law forbidding slavery, Mani was presented with a "liberation certificate". This proved to be worthless, as she was immediately forced into a "wahiya marriage", with the status of a concubine...."
It's pretty clear from this that the nightmare is not over for Niger's slaves. This "certificate of liberation" clearly doesn't guarantee freedom.
Not that they give a damn about slavery, but the NAACP sure is silent....
hmmm.. so are NATO, UN, ACLU, EU, The Protestants, The Episcopalians, The Hindus, THe Buddists, The Phone Company, The General Public, The Dhimmicrats, The Presidential Candidates, The Senate, The Congress, SEATO (are they still around?), The African Congress, OPEC, the IOC, Hollywood, the Daily KOS, HUFFPO,the Duranty Times, and just about the rest of the worthless world...
Article 4 of The Universal Declaration of Human Rights explicitly, and in the strongest possible terms, condemns slavery.
The so-called 'Cairo Declaration of Human Rights in Islam' does not contain such a clause. It does not at any point mention slavery; it does not condemn nor forbid slavery. It does, many times, state that every 'right' that it mentions is subject to the provisions of sharia.
Sharia permits - it does not either condemn or forbid - slavery.
Therefore, all those Islamic nations that endorse the 'Cairo Declaration' have in effect declared themselves *for* the keeping of slaves.
This was the lead story on the BBC radio's news hour, with an interview from someone from one of the British anti-slavery groups. And just like the Guardian article above, there wasn't even a hint of a peep that this might have anything to do with Islam. As welcome as this ruling is, if you're not even going acknowledge what is causing the slavery, you're not going to change anything. It sounds to me that in their refusal to mention the culprit, the BBC, the Guardian, and the British anti-slavery groups are slaves to Islam too.