When Aisha first walked into my office that cold Friday morning, accompanied by a woman, believed then to be a Good Samaritan; the thought that quickly ran through my mind was that of a girl who has been severely tortured and abused. Moved with pity and curious to know what could have happened to this teenager who just walked into my office, I cancelled every other appointment I had for that day. I have seen so many cases of abuse in my life, but something attracted me to Aisha; and I just couldn’t wait another minute to hear her story.
The story you are about to read is that of a thirteen year old girl who was betrayed and sent into slavery by her elder sister. It paints the picture of what hundreds of thousands of other young girls are going through across the world.
Read on as she recounts her ordeal in the hands of her supposed elder sister and husband…
My desire and aspiration in life have always been to go to school and become a very respectable member of the society. Like other normal children in our remote village in the North, nothing beats the good life of the city. To have an opportunity to move to the city anytime the opportunity beckons has always been a dream of mine. So imagine my excitement and joy when I had to pack my bags and move to the city with my elder city, whose husband lives and works in Kaduna. It was a ‘dream come true’ that I was leaving the ‘dull’ and dry life of the village to a city that much has been said and written about.
My sister, her husband and their two little children live in a reserved area in the city, where it is potentially a ‘taboo’ to mix with other people in the neighbourhood. This is quite different from the kind of lifestyle I was used to in the village; not that I was expecting the same kind of lifestyle, but to live in a neighbourhood where you only go out and come in as if you are in a kind of cold war with your neighbour was odd in my own view.
As days turned into weeks and weeks into months, my dream of being sent to school faded away as my sister and husband never said a word about it. I became an instant housemaid for my sister, while I gradually matured into being her husband’s sex machine. I noticed that my sister’s husband would come into the bathroom on the pretext of coming to take one or two things or ask me a question or two while I took my bath. I knew this was not normal, especially in the North where men were forbidden from looking at the nakedness of the opposite sex. Even though, I was not married, he had no right to stare at my breasts, which were already coming up. I had a rapid growth, and that was why my mum insisted that I always use the hijab each time I went out while I was still in the village.
My sister’s husband continued in his habit of staring at me lustfully, but the courage to open up to my sister was not there. I thought it was not right, but who was I to report him to my sister? He would sometimes hit me at my bum and jokingly point at how huge and seductive I looked. He only did all these whenever my sister was not in the house or had travelled to Dubai to buy things. Despite his weird way of hitting me on my bum and staring at me lustfully, my sister’s husband never treated me as harshly as my sister did.
That’s why I was taken aback when he came into my room one night during one of those days while my sister was away in one of her trips to Dubai. I didn’t notice that someone was already in the room until I felt a move around my private part. I suddenly woke up from sleep out of fear only to discover my sister’s husband asking me not to raise my voice. He asked if I still wanted to go to school and realise my dream of making it in life. Of course, I responded in the affirmative, and in childhood innocence, which was the tonic he needed to trick me into losing my virginity at age 11.
My sister’s husband cruelly and forcefully had sex with me that night. With blood all over the bed, and pains too deep to describe, he ravaged me and asked me not to tell anyone what had happened that night. The days that followed that incident were hellish and traumatic. With no one to run to and no one to confide in, I cried all alone and wished things didn’t turn out the way they have. My sister was not yet back from her trip; and even if she was, where would I find the courage to narrate all that had happened to me in her absence?
That marked the beginning of the journey to hell…
He would come into my room on several occasions and abuse me without being mindful of the pain he made me go through. This continued for weeks and even months; and it is quite strange that my elder sister never took notice of any physical and emotional changes within me. Quite odd that my sister never took note as it was pretty glaring that all was not well with me physically and emotionally. Deep in private part were pains and scars that refused to heal probably because my sister’s husband always forced his way into me. Life was made even worse with the way my sister added “insults to injury” as she practically turned me into a child labourer. She would force me to wash her clothes as well as her children’s clothes every morning while other kids were already in school.
Things continued that way for two years; and it still surprises me that my sister never cared to ask if I still wanted to go to school. Could my parents have sold me into slavery? How come none of them ever bothered to ask after me after these years?
The last straw…
Things got to a boiling point when my sister suddenly woke me up from sleep and started asking me some strange questions. She asked if I was pregnant, and who was responsible for it? I didn’t know what to tell her since such had never occurred to me before that time. The probing continued for a few more minutes, and she was soon joined by a friend of hers who encouraged my sister to change her method of extracting the truth out of me or at least take me to the hospital for a test. My sister settled for the former, and that was how I was mercilessly beaten by both of them until I passed out.
I really wouldn’t know for how long I remained in that state, but the only thing I knew at that time was that I woke up in my room all alone, with my dress all soaked up with water. My sister quietly came in with a man whom I suspected to be a doctor. I was asked to reveal the man responsible for my pregnancy; yes, I was pregnant according to my sister. She threatened to kill me if I refused to open up on the person responsible for my pregnancy.
For days I was denied food as my sister and her husband inflicted all sorts of punishments on me. Anytime I am left alone, my sister’s husband would come to my room to threaten me not to open up. He said he would not only deny that he was responsible for my pregnancy, but would also throw me out of the house and send people to kill me.
My exit from the house…
My sister’s husband’s threat sent fear down my spine and one morning, while other people were still sleeping, I ran out of the house. I walked and trekked as far as my legs and strength could carry me until I got to a place where my instinct convinced me that no one would recognize me.
As I lay down to rest beside a kiosk along the famous Kukari Road, I didn’t know that a woman had been watching me all day. She asked me what I wanted or if I missed my way. Out of fear, I started walking quietly away from the kiosk before she asked me to feel free to talk to her. Suddenly tears started rolling down my cheeks before she calmly held on to my hand and sat me down.
After narrating some of the things I went through in the hands of my sister and her husband, the woman was moved with passion, and promised to help; and that was how she brought me to this office.
The end…