Abandoned-Orphaned

Du'aa (part four)

In an important Iraqi city near where Du'aa was publically murdered, and where we received such a warm reception by the provincial Governor and his close aides, twelve teen-aged women are hiding in a secret shelter.

One of the residents, just 16 years old, was forced by her family to marry a much older man. While she was shopping one day, she bumped into a boy she used to have a crush on. Relatives who saw them conversing jumped to the conclusion that the couple had intentionally arranged a rendezvous at the market. The family members immediately abducted the two and drove them to a desolate area. The girl’s nose was viciously cut off and one of the boy’s ears was severed. Fearing that more was to come, the young woman went into hiding.

Another girl at the shelter had been ordered by her father to marry one of his older business colleagues. She flatly refused, as she had recently fallen in love with a boy her own age. Her father, humiliated and infuriated by her opposition, sent her away to live with her grandmother. The young girl would soon learn that her father and brother then murdered her boyfriend. Upon hearing that they were planning to kill her next, she, too, secreted away to an underground life, imprisoned by the ‘honor’ required of families in Northern Iraq.

The further ten stories of these women huddled together in seclusion are very similar, as are those of others concealed in safe houses around the city – terrified girls and young women who, in fear of savage deaths at the hands of their own families, ran away to escape execution. Some had simply fallen in love. Some refused to be mutilated through female circumcision. Others refused to marry men three times their age. A few found themselves pregnant after relationships with men who promised to marry them. And others were raped...an unforgivable defilement that often leads to death.

A good number of the children we will be rescuing in this city will no doubt include the abandoned babies of such women.

As we reach out and take in discarded children from Iraqi hospitals and street corners, we will think of these young girls who live in constant trepidation, especially those who gave up their children in order to breathe the air of another day.

Both choices must have seemed unbearably cruel to these frightened new mothers: Abandon your little baby and survive in secrecy, or keep the child and eventually be exposed and murdered.

...Either way, we are left with an orphan.

Du'aa (part three)

Du'aa’s mother blames Sheikh Sulaiman for allowing the mob to grab and brutally kill her daughter. The video evidence shows that Du’aa was dragged straight from the Sheikh’s house to be stoned to death in the village marketplace.

"He sent her out as a defenseless young girl," Du’aa’s mother asserts.

A London Times interview with the Sheikh reveals his overall condoning of the murder. Although he says on the record that the method of execution was not preferential, his words are no doubt carefully chosen given the widespread exposure the videos have brought to this specific honor killing.

According to the Sheikh, "Honor is a big thing here and each one deals with it differently. It was down to her family to cleanse her shame. Maybe kill her with one bullet, electrocution, any manner, but not through this awful stoning."

He continued, "There is no father who does not love his daughter. When a father kills his daughter to wash away their family shame, it breaks his heart to do so. But fathers are obliged to do this, otherwise they will be ostracized."

Can you believe these words...in this century?

Can you believe that they are being communicated to a major news organization by a man of the cloth, a religious leader?

Can you imagine your pastor saying such a thing?

It is this type of spiritual leadership, set in this type of spiritual climate and culture, that causes such things to happen with shocking regularity in Iraq and across the Middle East.

The London Times article stated that, according to a 2007 mid-year report from the Human Rights Ministry (HRM) in Northern Iraq, "598 women have been burnt, beaten, shot, strangled, thrown from tall buildings, force-fed with lethal drugs, crushed by vehicles, drowned, decapitated or made to kill themselves so far this year, exceeding the 553 recorded for the whole of 2006."

Perhaps some of those methods would have been met by more approval by the Sheikh.

Keep in mind that the statistics above are just for Du’aa’s region alone, Northern Iraq, and for just the murders that were ultimately determined to be honor killings.

Dalia Dzay, the Head of Research Studies at HRM, reportedly told the London Times that, "The perpetrators are simply finding new ways of achieving the same grisly end, for instance by forcing women to set fire to themselves so that their deaths looked like accidents with cooking fuel."

Some sources put the true statistics on honor killings in Northern Iraq as high as three killings per day.

What’s in store for a culture that is driven by ‘honor’ to kill its teenage daughters?

In these areas, the scarlet letters of shame are also applied to the children of unapproved unions, the kids that have been abandoned by their parents to avoid such ‘disgrace.’

These children are waiting to be loved and accepted.

These children are the agents of change that can break down these satanic strongholds of false reputation and honor.

Du'aa (part two)

**WARNING: The following entry contains graphic descriptions and photos that many readers may find highly disturbing.**

Click for Du'aa (part one).

Her name was Du’aa Khalil Aswad. She was a seventeen year-old girl from a middle-class family in Northern Iraq and belonged to the Yazidi sect, a complex mix of Sufi Islam and ancient Persian religions.

The Yazidis and surrounding Sunni Muslims have an intense dislike of each other. They are not permitted to intermarry and often don’t even mix socially. Four months ago, a Sunni Muslim girl eloped with a Yazidi man. She, too, paid the ultimate price. A Muslim lynch mob hunted her down, set fire to the surrounding homes, and beheaded her.

Du’aa’s crime was that she fell in love with a Sunni Muslim boy, nineteen year-old Muhannad Ummayad. It’s a Romeo and Juliet scenario where secrecy and stolen moments defined their relationship. Knowing the condemnation they would receive from their respective communities, they planned to run away together and get married.

One evening, Du’aa took out the trash from the family home and just kept walking towards a new life.

The next morning, the phone ominously rang back at her home. An anonymous caller informed the family that Du’aa was with Muhannad. The caller said that he would kill Du’aa to "wash away her shame," but her father, Khalil, immediately enlisted the police for help in order to save his little girl from certain execution.

The young couple was subsequently found hiding in a grove of olive trees.

"I promise you I am still a virgin," Du’aa told her mother. "I did nothing wrong, Mama."

It probably didn’t matter. The perception and association alone would have been enough to eventually cause a death sentence to be issued.

Du’aa was taken to the home of Sheikh Sulaiman, the senior spiritual leader for their village. There, one of Du’aa’s uncles, along with the head of the tribe, demanded that she be killed to "cleanse the family honor."

Du’aa’s father vehemently protested and suggested that she instead be married to a cousin and exiled to Syria.

"She has committed a wrong for which she will be punished, but not through death," he firmly stated. "I refuse to have my daughter killed."

The uncle, however, as the family elder, said that he alone was the one with the authority to decide Du’aa’s fate.

It’s not clear whether the Sheikh handed Du’aa over to her uncle the next day, or whether the uncle forcibly removed her from the house. Regardless, she was dragged in a stranglehold to the village marketplace like an animal to slaughter. Painful wailing and screams accompanied her as she kicked and struggled for freedom, or to steal just a brief moment to be able explain her actions and attest of her virtue.

But she couldn’t break free of the razor claws upon her. There was no chance to utter voice to her innocence.

Her lot was sealed.

Her lower body was initially stripped to add to her humiliation and to symbolize the disgrace of her choice. She tried to roll and cover her extremities, but one man took the instant to kick her between her legs with such a violent force that one can imagine her pelvic bones shattering upon embedded impact. As the tremors of pain ripped through her frail body, Du’aa writhed and screamed in absolute agony. A similar incident would occur later also, after thirty minutes of savage stoning and kicking.

The killing resembled a sporting event with men whooping, hollering and cheering as the aggressors pummeled this poor girl’s slight body into the hard, unforgiving ground. The coliseum of men was set on only one possible outcome. There was no need for the thumbs up or down by the Emperor. The lions would have their fill this day.

Apparently, it’s shameful that Du’aa fell in love with a boy that was not of her tribe and sect. And it’s shameful for a woman to even show her bare legs in this part of the world. But evidently it’s not shameful to strip her, humiliate her, degrade her and sadistically murder her in full public view.

According to the Yazidi sect, it’s also shameful to even spit on the ground. But it’s seemingly not shameful to see that same ground soak up the hate-spilled blood of a seventeen year-old girl who had simply acted like many impetuous teenagers of her day. And it’s supposedly not shameful that such a thing is done by a girl’s very family - her uncle, brother and cousins – in the name of ‘honor.’

I have already written of the profoundly disturbing spectacle that occurred as this girl was slowly bludgeoned to death with course rocks and polished shoes as part of a ritualistic execution. It needs no further elaboration, other than to tell you that a cousin (maybe even the very one her father wished to marry her to) was the barbarian who ended the family ‘shame’ by bashing her skull with a cinderblock.

After the heinous act, two of her brothers had to dig Du’aa’s body out of a garbage pit in order to bury her in a simple unmarked grave. She was then interred with the bones of a dog in what was supposed to be the final act of humiliation.

But another affront was yet to come.

Du’a’s body was subsequently exhumed so that an autopsy could determine whether she had died as a virgin or not. Presumably, a verdict of defilement would exonerate the killers and give excuse to their actions. Such a finding would give further evidence of the necessity of an honor killing.

To us in the West, it’s inconceivable that a murder victim’s body would be assaulted one more time for such a purpose. It’s implausible that authorities would grant access for such an outcome to be determined.

However, the postmortem inquisition proved to not be the final insult.

Despite accusations to the contrary, Du’aa’s relationship was indeed one of purity.

She had never slept with Muhannad.

The righteous rise
With burning eyes
Of hatred and ill-will
Madmen fed on fear and lies
To beat and burn and kill

Quick to judge
Quick to anger
Slow to understand
Ignorance and prejudice
And fear walk hand in hand

- Excerpted from "Witch Hunt," by Rush

Du'aa (part one)

I simply can’t get her out of my mind.

Perhaps it’s because I’m a father of two daughters, with a third on the way.

Perhaps it’s my acute sense of justice and extreme unease with the many wrongs of this fallen world.

Regardless, she’s stuck in there, haunting my waking moments, assaulting my dreams.

During my global travels, I’ve seen my fair share of physical assaults. Men fist-fighting over unknown infractions in Thailand. Street boys wresting over rotten scraps of food in Uganda. Myself being mugged by knife-wielding thugs in Jamaica.

I’ve also seen the mob-violence mentality in action, most recently as enraged men surrounded a captured thief in Nairobi and beat him viciously with iron bars and the heavy butts of rifles. I’m sure he didn’t make it. There are too many other examples to list, but the commonality is that men were the primary perpetrators...and the primary victims.

I don’t intentionally try to lessen the magnitude of such things in my mind just because both the predators and prey are men. In fact, it all makes my blood boil regardless. But when the scenario is one of a man, or a group of men, bringing harm to a defenseless woman or child, that same blood turns to steam. There’s a whole different realm of righteous anger involved.

...And so when I saw the mobile phone video of the teenage girl being kicked and stoned to death in a macabre scene of testosterone-fueled gore in Iraq, my heart was trampled in a stampede of emotions and my inner outrage swelled to volcanic proportions.

Again, I initially looked at the scene through the lens of a proud father of precious daughters. My first response was one of sheer fright, shock and disbelief. Was this really happening? What if it were Faith or Hannah being mercilessly battered by those rabid cowardly men?

My second response was an overwhelming desire to hunt down all the vile creatures involved and, using Rambo-style tactics, eliminate each one of them from existence this side of eternity, sending them into a blazing inferno far more excruciating and enduring than the agony they inflicted on this poor girl.

These men - wicked men - were intent on destructing a fragile life while also capturing mementos on their camera phones, little blood trophies of their lust for brutality. How could they treat such an intense spectacle of torment as something to memorialize and boast in pixels? How could they be so blasé about the most tempestuous and terrifying moment – the final moment – of this delicate young girl’s life?

Meanwhile, police stood by letting it happen, perhaps even enabling it to happen. In one of the grainy video renditions, the police smile for the camera as the young girl is dragged past them in an ironclad headlock, and as the ensuing blood frenzy occurs just beyond where they stand and keep watch.

Blood was splashing.

Phone cameras were clicking.

Police were smiling.

Upon my return from Iraq, I did the research. I felt compelled to do so. I had to put a name to the face and context to the offending images. I figured that, with so many camera phones capturing the video and stills of this horrific event, there had to be some Internet reporting associated with it.

Sadly, I was right. There’s no less than five different video versions of this stoning that can be dug up on various domestic and international websites. They can be pieced together to show the full continuum of her pain and fear.

And with them, her story is told.

There are some discrepancies to the accounts, something to be expected when different religions, factions and worldviews are involved, each jockeying for shock value, rationale, explanation, or favorable opinion.

But the core facts are not in dispute.

To be continued...

World Orphans Weekly! - Return from Iraq

Dear Friend of the Fatherless,

Scott and I have just returned from a very eventful and productive trip to Iraq. Besides viewing the new World Orphans office there, we had the opportunity to meet with key leaders in government as well as interact with children that have been orphaned and abandoned in the country.

(PIERCING THE DARKNESS: The World Orphans office sign in Iraq)

 

(FOR THE LEAST OF THESE: Paul and Scott with some of the Iraqi children they spent time with)

We invite you to read the posts below to experience some of the journey and its achievements.

Thank you for your heart for the Iraqi churches, people...and orphans.

Nazis? – Obviously we were prepared to perhaps encounter militant Muslims on this trip, but Nazis???

Lost Sheep – A stopover in Jordan reveals a valley steeped in deception and betrayal

All – Sometimes you have to travel halfway around the world to hear additional perspectives on the Great Commission

Second Time Around – Iraq, a country of extremes

Potholes – The truth is often said in jest

Sowing Seeds: Mohammed and Jihad – Namesakes of Islam, receptive to the love of Christ

Kidnappers and Angels – A man avoids what he had once hoped to become

Circle of Tears – Not far from our location, a woman suffered the cruelest demise

Bastards (part one) – A derogatory term here; the shame of children there

Bastards (part two) – Oftentimes, you have to even implore the Church to have the compassion of Jesus

Close Proximity – Bombs to the left of us, bombs to the right. Fifty miles away, but a stark reminder of the dangers of the region

Cold Streets – Snow in Iraq? Street children have to endure harsh climate extremes

Gatekeepers (part one) – Not exactly the scene a typical tourist would encounter

Gatekeepers (part two) – Rolling out the read carpet for World Orphans

Art of Suffering – Blast barriers reveal the pain of the people

Each One a Treasure – The faces of the children

Return – The joys of traveling from a conflict-torn country

Until They All have Homes,

Paul Myhill
President/CEO

World Orphans
1840 Woodmoor Dr., Suite 100
Monument, CO 80132
1-888-ORPHANS
719-487-1700
Facebook Profile

All contributions are tax deductible and eternally significant.

Return

A city fifty miles away from where we were based on this Iraq trip has been called the "last stronghold of Al Qaeda in Iraq." It, and some other municipalities in the Northern provinces, has seen a heightened level of insurgent activity over the past few weeks.

Our departure clearly reflected this increased echelon of violence.

After going through a couple of security checkpoints, Scott and I showed up at the airport at 1:00 am, only to learn that our flight had been delayed. As this flight only leaves under cover of darkness late at night, the window of opportunity would be missed. The suspension ended up lasting a whole day, with the aircraft finally leaving at midnight.

During our second attempt, we went through multiple baggage x-rays and hand searches before being ushered out onto the tarmac. Not content to rely upon Iraqi security, two Jordanian security officers did a final – and very thorough – search of us and our bags right next to the plane. These guys were the real deal, easily passing for premium henchmen in a James Bond movie – very tough, stoic and down-to-business.

The plane carried no identifying marks – plain white and lacking airline logos or colors, almost like a UN aircraft but absent the distinguishing letters. The security officers boarded the plane with us, surveyed the passengers and guarded the exit. They then traveled on the aircraft to Jordan where, upon disembarkation, they oversaw us putting our bags into a mobile x-ray machine that had pulled up in a specialized truck.

Not allowed to go directly to our connecting flight because baggage simply couldn’t be forwarded, we had to once again enter Jordan, pick up our luggage, and go through all the security precautions involved in taking an outbound flight...including special hand searches of our bags once again.

Such are the travel procedures for exiting a conflict-torn country.

Scott and I thank you for the prayer coverage you have given us on this trip. Please stay tuned here at abandoned-orphaned.com as I continue some of my reflections concerning the visit over the next few days.

Blessings, Paul

Close Proximity

Two days ago an explosive-rigged apartment caused a tremendous blast that took the lives of over thirty-five people and injured well over two hundred more. The carnage occurred 51 miles away from where we were located in Iraq at the time. Meanwhile, on the same day, a suicide bomber detonated his vehicle, sending six people immediately to their deaths, and injuring twenty more. This second site of devastation took place in a city lying just 54 miles in a different direction.

Two attacks, each about 50 miles away from us.

Many of the injured are expected to die over the next few days. The world ‘injured’ makes the blood toll seem more palatable. The reality is that injured means that your arms, legs or both have been crudely blown off. Half your face is dripping off of your head. Your skull has nails and screws embedded in it. You will never bear children. You will never walk or talk again. These are the realities that are underreported or simply glossed over. These explosive devices are coarse and brutal, designed to maim as well as kill, causing debilitating disabilities and painful struggles that last a lifetime.

(ALWAYS PREPARED: A Tombstone merchant near our hotel)

(BLAST BARRIERS: Our hotel, encircled behind a painted anti-explosion barricade)

For all our friends back in the Denver area, the proximity of these attacks would be the equivalent of bombings occurring simultaneously in Loveland and Monument (site of the World Orphans office, north of Colorado Springs). And for my friends in the Los Angeles area, it would be like bombs exploding at the same time in Irvine and Ventura.

We felt safe, but it’s an all-too-close reminder of how the current situation in Iraq can bring death at any time, any place.

(FRAGILE EXISTENCE: A veiled woman carries eggs on a street across from our hotel)

Bastards (part one)

A family’s reputation is an extremely important thing here in Iraq, much as it is in most of the Islamic world. There is little doubt that many young women who supposedly commit suicide by pouring gasoline over their bodies and setting themselves alight, are really the victims of family ‘honor killings,’ the age-old practice of relatives slaughtering women who bring shame to their kin.

Justice turns a blind eye to such things, because family honor is so prized as part of the Islamic identity.

Depending on the country in the broader Muslim world, the offenses that these women commit to bring such disgrace and humiliation can range anywhere from hanging out with men while unmarried, to being the victim of a rape, engaging in fornication, or having an adulterous relationship. To bear a child out of wedlock can be considered the ultimate offense and the offspring of such a sin is regarded as an abomination.

My heart is for the abandoned and orphaned children of the world, hence the title of this blog. Although different circumstances play their part in whether a child loses their parents or is discarded, the net result is usually the same: a child is left without the love of a mother and father.

However, in some areas of the world, there is a clear distinction between these two classifications of parentless children.

Iraq is such a place.

There are many orphans here in Iraq – children whose parents have died due to one of many rounds of bloodshed from within and without; children whose mom and dad have lost the battle with disease; and children who are left to fend for themselves as accidents or calamities have claimed their family members.

But there is an abundance of abandoned children in Iraq – children of second wives who have been kicked out of the home after their husbands have died; children who have been rejected by the new husband of a widowed or divorced woman; children who have been forsaken by the father who typically gets possession of them after a divorce; and children who are born to unwed mothers and left in hospitals after the delivery.

In Iraq, this latter group of abandoned kids is still referred to by a term we in the west now consider to be quite derogatory: bastards. These children have a high degree of ‘shame’ associated with them and are regarded as much lower in status than true orphans of deceased parents.

(Images: School children we visited in Iraq. Quite a number of them are orphaned or abandoned)

There is no adoption in Iraq (or many parts of the Muslim world), but many orphans do get taken in by extended family. The bastards, however, are totally rejected and are not assimilated into families (biological or otherwise) because of the disrepute they would bring to a family.

Circle of Tears

Our 12-hour journey yesterday was through desert, grasslands, winding valleys and mountainous slopes dashed with snow. Makin accompanied us and shared more about his life in this conflict-torn country.

At one point, Makin handed us his cell phone and instructed us to watch a video he set to play. He warned us that it would be upsetting.

The images were of an event that had happened not far from where we were then traveling. The act itself and the realization of its proximity haunted my dreams last night.

A horde of men were gathered many deep in a tight circle. They were yelling and jostling for position around the attraction at the center of the agitated gathering. Some hands were in the air, holding camera phones above the tumult. Others were being raised and thrust down in an unyielding rhythm. Hatred was apparent in each downward lunge.

The camera phone that was recording the commotion soon pieced through the veil of enraged men. The object of their anger was a slight teenage girl lying on her side in a fetal opposition with her arms desperately trying to shield her head. Her underwear had been temporarily pulled down to her ankles to add to her humiliation.

Her crime? Falling in love with somebody from a different sect, a Sunni Muslim boy.

Had she slept with him? No. Love itself was criminal enough.

The camera-phone video now picked up the soul-wrenching sound of her painful crying, interspersed with excruciating shrieks and pleas, as rocks rained down upon her. Many stones pummeled the softness of the target but others began to break through her cradled defense to strike her skull.

Others were ruthlessly stamping and kicking her - in the head, back, groin - and forcing her skirt temporaily above her waist to expose her to all. She momentarily fought the rocks to cover herself and make an appeal for clemency, her bloodied face being struck mutliple times during the process.

She then fell down, motionless.

The men were relentless. They stood directly above her, hurtling their missiles at great force and velocity. Arms and legs were in constant action like pistons, almost as if a competition were occurring to see who could heave the most rocks and kicks...or who would deliver the final death blow.

That final blow came in the form of a big concrete block smashed over her head.

It was a truly horrific sight that shocked the senses. A poor, defenseless girl encircled by a pack of wild dogs hell bent on pounding her into the earth. Blood splashed and gushed in a stream from her broken form. Blood-thirst temporality satisfied.

Here in a land of significant Biblical history, I thought of such an event that was broken up by Jesus. Yes, I’ve read the passages often, but I never dwelt upon the ferocity and barbarism involved with such a hideous execution.

And I thought of the courage of Jesus to challenge such a raw turbulence and unbridled desire for bloodshed.

The value of a woman here is marginal at best. They are merely the property of men. One false move and they lose their dignity, possessions, children, and lives.

It is in this environment that the orphaned and abandoned are created in good measure.

(ON THE EDGE: Life can be very lonely and precarious for Muslim women in oppressive societies)

Kidnappers and Angels

Makin (not his real name) is currently serving as our Deputy Country Director in Iraq. Baghdad is his hometown and he knows all too well the trials and tribulations of living - and dying - here.

He is a man that has angels sitting on his shoulder.

Before coming to Christ, Makin’s intention was to become a kidnapper, to take persons of value for ransom. As a Christian, though, he came to deeply value human life.

While serving in Saddam’s army during the first Gulf War, Makin was asked by another Iraqi soldier why he would not shoot at American troops. "Is it because you are a Christian and they are Christians?" this soldier asked. "No," replied Makin. "It is because they are human."

After hearing Makin’s response, the soldier became determined to turn Makin in to the commanding officer, a situation that could easily cause him to be summarily executed under Saddam’s regime. Before the soldier could carry out his intentions, though, a bomb dropped by an America aircraft ripped through his fortified position and killed him.

After the war, Makin and a friend were resting on a rock in the area we are visiting today. As his friend extended a leg to get a more comfortable position, an unseen mine was tripped. The blast instantly ripped off his friend’s leg and immersed him in a shower of flesh and blood. Makin’s friend took the full brunt of the explosion, sparing any injury to Makin.

Another buddy of Makin’s was abducted along with two other Christian men in Baghdad late last year. The two men were beheaded on successive days by militant Islamic extremists and Makin’s pal was to be decapitated on the following day. Makin went furiously to work, sending out countless e-mails to solicit global prayer for his condemned friend. The next day brought a startling result: his friend was miraculously released without explanation.

Makin himself has had to escape kidnappers, fleeing in a car at speeds over 140 mph to evade capture. He saw them following him slowly in a large vehicle, waiting for a dark or deserted area to make their move. The more clandestine opportunity didn’t present itself, so they soon opted for full pursuit. Makin’s agile car, a small Volkswagen Golf, was able to dart through traffic and gain an advantage. His fortified neighborhood was surrounded by concrete blast barriers and armed security forces standing watch. As he sped up to the neighborhood checkpoint, his pursuers relented and retreated.

The irony is not lost on Makin. The man that he originally wanted to become was the same as the men he had prayed against for the release of his friend; the same as the men he had eluded during the car chase.

I mentioned to Makin that he has indeed become a kidnapper - abducting souls from the enemy, stealing lost people from the kingdom of Satan and placing them into the Kingdom of God, snatching children from the clutches of evil and immersing them into an ocean of love.

He thought for a moment, nodded his head, and smiled.

His angels smiled with him.