There’s no point in online feminism if it’s not intersectional

Since we’re looking for the least privileged woman in the world I’d like to nominate my mother. True, she lives here in the West and has never gone hungry (well, at least for no more than a coupla days) but I think she’s somewhere near the bottom and a good a place as any to start.

My mother was born in a village in Kashmir. She was the fourth of 10 children and 1 of 8 girls. Her father was a community doctor and so earned a reasonable enough wage but with that many children they were never what we might think of as well off. So much so that Granddad worked hard to save enough money so that he could give his daughters a decent enough dowry. The plan was to marry them off as soon as they hit puberty thus lessening the burden on the family as a whole.

She was barely 16 when she was packed onto a plane ready to begin her new life in Great Britain. She had barely enough of an education so that she could read letters sent to her in Urdu by her mother, my nan. She was just a child. But one my grandparents couldn’t afford to feed. And so she was palmed off on the first willing man to take her on. My father was 10 years her senior and didn’t want to get married. Or at least he did, but not to her. He was in love with a woman of mixed heritage and his mother, my paternal gran was determined it wouldn’t happen, she hadn’t brought her boys to this new land only for them to mix it up. She and my grandfather had a way of ensuring their children did as they were told, mainly through violence and coercion. My great grandparents had been Muslim scholars, feared and revered by the community in Pakistan. They had a reputation to protect and this came at any cost. My grandparents were the product of an extremely insular and strict manifestation of Islamism. As a child I heard my paternal great grandmother was beaten to death barely a few months after the birth of my granddad’s younger brother. This, because she had sat on her brother’s bed, whilst he lay recovering from an illness. It was too much for great granddad’s male ego and honour. “That’s just the way they did things” was the reply I got when I protested my family legacy through tears. “I’ll show them,” is the mantra I’ve had my whole life. I will be a feminist for all my foremothers; I will take back what was stolen from the women who came before me. A life, namely. An education. Bodily autonomy. Sexual freedom.

But my mother, now divorced and estranged from me, still suffers. We don’t speak because I am alien to her. From a very young age, I believed my emancipation would come from allying myself with the white feminist. I wanted what they had. As a very small child this meant the freedom to dress as I wish and associate with boys. That’s as far as my struggle got through my teens. But as I got older, I continued to behave as my white peers did and this widened the gap between my mother’s hopes for me (she really wanted me to be an air hostess) and my desires for equal rights in a man’s world. She won’t speak to me because she is afraid of what I have become. She won’t give me the opportunity to explain I did this for her.

As soon as I was old enough to hit the men back (15), I dragged my mother away from the community she knew and set into motion the process to divorce her from my father. During this time, I gullibly confirmed to the white workers who were trying to house us in temporary accommodation that the men in my family were savages, bringing with them the patriarchal controls they had back home. When fleeing domestic violence the local authority has an ‘interim duty to accommodate’ and as I rolled out the reasons we were presenting as such, it suddenly dawned on me, I was lucky to be alive. Domestic abuse, child sexual abuse, poverty, homelessness, religious/cultural demons, immigration issues (read racism), disability, isolation, self-harm, eating disorders.. This was not an exhaustive list but my small family had been victim to them all. Sure, I had internet access at the time but I didn’t see it as a privilege, more of a necessary escape. That’s a very silly thing to say Sadie. And it is your privilege that allows you to think like that.

I wish my life had been a little easier. I wish my mother had the right to an education so that she was self-sufficient and might have kicked my dad to the kerb with her dignity intact. But she didn’t. After 20 years of unfaltering duty, irrespective of the abuse she suffered, my father granted her a divorce and gave her £6000 for the trouble. That’s how much she was worth in the end. Her body ravaged by pregnancies she did not consent to, her children traumatised and displaced. She put the miserly amount he’d afforded her towards my younger sister’s nuptials. Because, despite the living hell she’d endured, she was still afraid the community would judge her for her unmarried daughters. This is also where I fell short in my duties as a daughter.  I don’t believe in marriage and who could blame me? But my mother doesn’t see it like that. The patriarchy has controlled her life since forever and although she suffered as a result of it, it still governs her thoughts, she doesn’t know any better.

If I’m a bit mean, frankly, it’s because I’m fed up. Suzanne Moore blocked me on Twitter a little while ago. I can’t even remember what for but I was reminded of it when I tried to RT the fuck outta her tweet asking for James Delingpole to admit he’s a misogynist cock. I joked that it was a shame because even though I had my issues with her, united we would stand in the face of patriarchy. I’m assuming it got back to her because later on that evening I was able to RT with abandon. Why couldn’t Sadie Smith leave well alone? By writing her piece all she’s done is pander to patriarchy. Hell, she even admits to wanting to behave like a misogynist. How is that EVER ok Sandie?

Could it be that privilege allows you some control? The privilege of having a voice or a face that fits so that you can use a platform whichever way you want. “Feminism is not bullying and beating up other women.” Haven’t you done exactly that, Sadie?

As a result of my life, I take pills. There are the ones that keep me on an even keel and the ones that work directly on my spinal cord and brain. When I accused Mary Beard of racism, I was horrified and immediately apologised, but I was made an example of when privilege politics go wrong. I’d unwittingly caught the tail end of a Twitter storm and was held up as an example of ‘stupid’ intersectional feminists using the race card at will. I wish I had the privilege of a clear, sharp mind. I wish I could pick the days when the fog takes over; I could plan my life a bit easier.

If I’m mean or angry, couldn’t you at least try to understand why? That’s what we intersectional feminists do. We understand that some of the stuff that happens in life has profound and lasting effects on people. None of us ask to be born for if we did, I’m sure we’d all tick the white cis gendered box. Nobody would choose an existence where you are overlooked/beaten/murdered for the colour of your skin, or choose to be disabled or *trans.

It’s just how we were born and all we mean to ask is, why am I not as worthy as you?

When will the media afford victims the dignity they deserve?

I’m struggling to understand why shit nugget Ken Barlow has made such a big splash in the news. Don’t get me wrong, his comments regarding victims of child sex abuse were repulsive and alarming when he suggested that the perpetrators ought to be ‘totally forgiven’ (anything you’d like to share, Ken?) but let’s just stop and back up a minute. He’s a soap actor. I’m not the biggest fan of Corrie but I dip in now and then when I need to zone out, perfect for a bit of mindless white noise. And that is where I want to see Ken, where I can laugh at him for his swelled sense of self and how he coulda been somebody. I don’t want to see him in a paper IRL, or care for his opinion much. I am not questioning why Ken thinks like this (that’s easy: patriarchy) but why the media allowed him the platform to say such a thing. And it’s not just him.

When the Savile news broke we were told by many journalists how they’d always had suspicions (and in some cases hard evidence) of the systematic abuse perpetrated by him. The world was rightfully enraged at these revelations and decent people asked the question why, if so many people were aware of what was going on, these incidents were never reported. One had hoped that this would be a tipping point and victims of historical abuse would feel safe and positively encouraged to finally tell their stories, victims would seek the justice they had been denied. But instead we were subjected to an onslaught of entitled slebs spouting seriously twisted and damaging rhetoric around the definition of a victim and the very concerning message that victims should just let it go. Jeremy Irons believes that young victims of sexual abuse have been encouraged to play the part of a victim, failing to take into account the profound physical/psychological effects non-consensual activity has on a person. He added that he loved touching people and that any self-respecting woman would tell him to fuck off if she minded. Has this walking/talking dildo any concept of ENTHUSIASTIC CONSENT? What kind of sadistic personality feels they can touch and take without EXPRESS CONSENT? Germy Irons makes my skin crawl, in that he thinks like a perpetrator. He seeks to pleasure himself without a second thought for the person he may be violating.

I would like to believe that the media is exposing these ball sacks for the sickos they are and by giving them the front page they are in fact condemning their words but it’s not just the luvvies. Journalists have these kinds of opinions too and worryingly, have the opportunity to express the same dangerous thoughts with more frequency. A while ago, Brendan O’Neill wrote a disparaging piece on victims who he believed were ‘making a spectacle of themselves’ by disclosing horrific abuse perpetrated against them by members of the Catholic Church. He also asked what the motivations for revealing past abuse could be. Erm… Closure? Victims often suffer post-traumatic stress decades after the incident. PTSD can be severely debilitating. By speaking through our experiences we can process the information in a safe way so that our bodies are not fighting against us when we are triggered. Why didn’t he know this? Or did he? What was his motivation for silencing victims in this way? What motivates the press to publish one misogynistic prick after the next on how it’s all the victim’s fault for being such a victim? This type of discussion renders people who have been subject to crime unwilling to identify as a victim because it leaves them vulnerable to ridicule and therefore in limbo, unable to reconcile the trauma with fact, doomed to feeling misplaced shame forever. How utterly inhumane.

We have a culture in this country of censuring victims and celebrating perpetrators. THAT is patriarchy. It is power and control. Patriarchy has to remind you at every opportunity that it is in control. When Ray Winstone (there’s another fella who should stick to his day job) made those bizarre comments conflating high taxes with ‘rape’ we were rightfully appalled. But it did make me question the trend for famous men to stick their oar in everywhere (so to speak) and the readiness of the press to publish them. I think it’s a tad optimistic to believe that these men are given a platform because they are being exposed for their outrageous claims. Instead it’s another method of control ensuring victims remain silent and we preserve the status quo. For victims, it is disempowering to be reminded constantly of what they have been made to believe by their perpetrators. That they are unworthy, they are impure. That somehow they brought it on themselves. When the Steubenville rapists were convicted, the media unremittingly reminded us of why we cannot report. Why we should not report. The language they used and the way in which the victim was vilified served as a reminder to us all that we cannot come out the other side of the process intact. Every other thing we do in this life will be scrutinised for evidence of whoredom, somehow all those other interactions contribute to the incident in question. It is never just the rapists fault, the victim is always culpable.

When I recently wrote to a journalist of a local newspaper asking him to revise his piece on a 14 year old victim of paedophilia where he described the act between them as sex, he was more concerned with the fact that I had tweeted his name with the hashtags #smashthepatriarchy and #rapeculture. He denied that he had chosen to word it in such a way and instead blamed the police press release he’d used to gather information. When I emailed back to say that I had deleted the ‘offending tweets’, and would he add a note to explain why the piece had been changed, I was left without a response. He was only concerned with his good name and suffice to say, I won’t be letting it go so easily next time.

What are we to do about our dangerously misogynistic, patriarchal press?

Perpetrators, Paedophiles and Patriarchy

It’s been a while since I was a teenage girl but I can remember how I used to feel. I am one of an identical set of twins. Identical, but different still. I was the quiet studious one, she was the pretty one all the boys wanted. Identical remember? I was a few pounds heavier so this made me the fat one. Pounds, not kilos or stones. They said I had a bigger nose even though most people couldn’t tell us apart at first glance. I was a coupla inches taller than my younger sister by four minutes, but patriarchy doesn’t care for a healthy body mass index just sex appeal and next to me; she was a little bit skinnier and more talkative, especially with the boys.

She was 12 the first time a boy called her frigid. He was the cock of the class, advancing through puberty with straight As and all the girls wanted to be his girlfriend. I did too but I can’t remember why, it was just what we did. We weren’t thinking of losing our virginities, heck, we didn’t quite understand how that all worked. The gesture of the finger through the hole was frightening, what on earth did it mean? My sister was called frigid for refusing to let this boy kiss her cheek. In fact, she thought he’d already gone too far by holding her hand! A little while later we’d heard he’d cheated on her with a girl a coupla years above us. Everyone said they’d had sex and everyone called that girl a slag. But everyone gave him a pat on the back and whispered about who’d get to be his next girl. This behaviour was considered normal.

Teenaged girls are walking the tightrope to acceptance. I’ll never forget how an ex described how happy and reassured he was that his recently tweenie daughter was funny; a skill that would help her fit in with the boys. He actually said that it didn’t matter if a girl was not so attractive as long as she had the ability to charm them over with her wit. It was then I understood that he understood patriarchy and how it controls women. To fit into this man’s world, you’ve gotta make yourself attractive to them, on their terms.

And so we start shaving the baby bird down we sprout when our bodies start changing. We aspire to be the girl the other girls don’t like; they’re only jealous. We want a boyfriend but that’s only because so and so has one and if we don’t it’s probably because we have herpes. The word virgin makes us cringe and it’s only when we lose our virginities that we realise it’s too late, now we are sluts and can never be a virgin again. Some of us will have to have our hymens sewn up so that we can pretend it never happened. It’s that or risk death in the name of patriarchal ‘honour’.

In light of the Savile enquiry, with hundreds courageously coming to the fore, our society has had to think seriously about the way in which we silence child victims of sexual abuse in this country. They have been scorned and accused of making their allegations up; because it’s easy to present as a victim of systematic abuse? Only it’s not. How is one hardwired to think of people being so duplicitous as to convince a jury that they have been horrifically violated, sexually, against their will? Imagine replaying those incidents over and over in  your mind until one day, when you feel for the first time people are actually listening, you dare to share the crimes committed against you, hopeful that you will have finally have support. Except.. They say that you are lying, that they don’t believe you and this is something you have conjured up for financial gain.. Why would anyone risk putting themselves through this unless they are telling the truth?

Even if you are telling the truth and the judge believes you, convicts the perpetrator and locks him away, there’s a message in it for you still. It doesn’t matter that you’ve just only just left primary school, haven’t even had all of your jabs, the fact that you were there shows you were willing. This is what Judge David Farrell QC had to say whilst passing sentence on Roshane Channer and Ruben Monteiro, jailing them both for just 40 months because he accepted the perpetrator’s defence that she was ‘willing’ and looked at least 14.

Judge Farrell said: “Despite her age it is accepted that she was a willing participant, but the law is there to protect young girls from this type of behaviour and to protect them from themselves.

“The girl had clearly been subjected to systematic sexual exploitation and you willingly used her for your own sexual gratification. It is aggravated by the fact that the event was being videoed.”

I disagree, Judge Farrell. The law is there to protect children from men like you. And you are there to implement the law, not make a mockery of it.

But he’s the not only one. Last month Steven Pollock admitted to violating a 13 year old girl. He was duly convicted of sex with a minor yet somehow managed to walk free from court with just an order for community service and undertaking that he should attend a sex offender’s programme. He obviously knew he was committing an offence when he told his very drunk victim to pretend she was 16. The CPS changed the original charge of rape because they could not establish whether she had given consent.

CONSENT?

How is a minor able to give consent? Is this not a clear cut case for statutory rape?

Lord Turnbull has difficulty answering this question. “It is important to understand that the offence arises out of consensual conduct rather than any form of force, grooming or manipulation.”

MINORS CANNOT GIVE CONSENT.

DRUNK 13 YEAR OLDS CANNOT GIVE CONSENT.

THIS IS CALLED RAPE.

When the judiciary are sending out a clear message to victims that they brought it on themselves, how is it any wonder that Savile’s victims remained silent for so long? Even when they convict offenders they have to slip in a warning (control) for all victims. Anthony Parry was recently convicted of rape and sentenced to 6 years imprisonment. His victim awoke to find Parry raping her. Despite this and the fact that Judge Niclas Parry found the defendant guilty, he added that the victim had “let herself down badly” by drinking heavily and taking drugs on the night she was attacked. He told her she had made herself “easy prey for a rapist”.

Take this as a warning women, you should all just accept rapists exist and that they will rape you if you don’t do a better job of immunising yourself against this sort of thing. Stop drinking, stop having fun, change your clothing (but don’t cover up too much lest they think you’re a Muslim, and what a can of worms that is) and for chrissakes, stop sleeping around, or you’re just asking for it.

Sign this petition, not because I believe it will ultimately change anything for the big menz in power but because it is raising awareness by its very existence. RT it, forward it on to your mailing lists, keep talking about it. The more we say, the more we can do to affect change.

Judge Niclas Parry, apologise and retract your victim blaming comments:

https://www.change.org/en-GB/petitions/judge-niclas-parry-apologise-for-and-retract-your-victim-blaming-comments-to-a-rape-victim

The patriarchal media and its victims

It’s hard being a victim. The very word implies submission to a violent or aggressive act, one in which we were overpowered and controlled. It makes us feel helpless and vulnerable. Being a victim or coming across as one leaves us open to further victimisation. And so we prefer to say we are survivors. We were able to overcome the horrific circumstances that threatened to shut us down and because we have survived we deserve praise for our resilience and ability to rise up. To do this, we need recognition. Firstly to recognise for ourselves that we fought hard and that it wasn’t our fault. Our clothing is not to blame, nor our looks or the time of day. Secondly, that our supporters believe us and in doing so protect us from further harm, defining the line for what is acceptable, ensuring that we do not begin to believe the lies our media and politicians spin in order to control our movements and associations.

A sex scandal is what happens when a supposedly happily married media ‘personality’ cheats on their long suffering, eternally loyal partner. Why it is any of our business, I won’t pretend to understand but for the sake of a comparison, that is how it reads to me (and I hope for most people). My aversion to the phrase aside, I strongly object to those words being used to describe CHILD ABUSE/STATUTORY RAPE (where patriarchy calls the underage victim willing and ‘older than their years’). In one article exposing the child abuse/sexual violence perpetrated by the voice of Elmo (yes, really), he is described as having ‘sexual relationships’ with underage ‘accusers’. Minors cannot consent to ‘sexual relationships’.

NON CONSENSUAL SEX IS RAPE.

(You can read the article here http://huff.to/WMoubA)

The writer of this article calls it underage sex and suggests the voice of Elmo continues to experience ‘misfortune’ as a result of the allegations. Hey Elmo, it really is bad luck that you’ve been caught abusing children. Maybe if we tarnish your young victims with the sort of language that implies something sexual happened but they’re only making it known now cos they want to see you go down, you’ll be spared a proper punishment and the victims will be ridiculed instead.

What do Berlusconi, Dominique Strauss Kahn, Jimmy Savile and Elmo have in common? They have raped and abused and violated women and children without their consent. In the British press, they are all allegedly involved in ‘sex scandals’. There are numerous attempts on behalf of the patriarchal press and media to silence the victims by giving a platform to the perpetrators (‘I’m not an abuser and that’s the end of that. Now give me money’) and using language to convince you of their innocence. Victims do not want to be associated with a sex scandal. It is sordid and implies they were actively involved in some way. By implicating the victims and suggesting that they are in some way to blame, patriarchy ensures that survivors remain victimised. It creates a barrier for other victims to speak out too. It normalises abuse by rebranding it as just sex and the ‘accusers’ as jilted lovers or scroungers after their 15 minutes. Just like the many women who believe partners have more rights to their bodies than they themselves do (wish I’d been there when patriarchy invented this one) even when she doesn’t feel like it, the message we are consistently given is that there are levels of rape and your rape isn’t even rape rape. In fact rape rape is extremely rare so in this way patriarchy has convinced you that sexual violence against women just isn’t even a thing (what rape culture?).

This is one of many examples I could give regarding the way news is reported in a patriarchal system and how it influences society’s attitudes to victims of gender related crime. In as many weeks, 2 perpetrators of domestic homicide murdered their wives before committing suicide. Neither case was reported to involve domestic abuse. There was an emphasis on the behaviour of the murdered woman in the run up to the incident, perhaps she liked a drink and was ‘bubbly’ (read overly friendly/in your face). There were no indications as to the behaviour of the perpetrator except maybe he’d had a spell of depression (sympathy please) and don’t forget what an amazing personality/leader/sportsman he was and what a loss this will be to the world. The language used attempts to invoke sympathy for the abuser; it paints a tragedy not a brutal murder.

It is powerful and influential and they know this.

..Don’t even get me started on child ‘porn’.

Bless you father; for you have sinned

If, like me, you started today with a sinking feeling and a need to hide away under your duvet, chances are it’s not a very happy father’s day for you. There may be those who have been recently bereaved. This piece is not for them. This is not about the loving, doting, happy to provide and protect father; the one who read you a bedtime story and tucked you up in bed, waking to drive you to school the next day.  It’s not even about the strict dad, who scared your first boyfriend off because he would never be good enough for his little girl. It’s about the fathers who are only dads through DNA.

In the very beginning, a man deposited an amount of sperm in a woman’s body. He didn’t really love her, just felt like he owned her and could use her if he damn well pleased; being a man an’ all, with all the privilege that comes with it. Woman fell pregnant and man accused her of entrapment. Many women feel quite sad about this. Man seems all too happy to have sex with her but the second she falls pregnant, it’s all about her manipulative ways to snare a man. Surely man needs to be more careful about where he sticks it? Especially as precious new life may be the result. How irresponsible. Woman thinks it’d be a better world if people would only have sex with people they wouldn’t in fact mind having children with.

Woman and man have been raising the kids for a while now. He still maintains he did not want anything to do with her but miraculously causes another coupla babies to be born. I say man too, but really this is not true. Man lives his life whilst woman’s children are now her life. He drinks, he womanises, leaves evidence of his activities lying around for the children to see. Woman gains a shed load of weight. She stops washing. She loses the words to express herself. Man calls her a filthy disgusting pig and says it’s no wonder he is not attracted to her. Woman vows she does not care after the last time he punched her in the mouth and it bled.

The children are growing. They don’t like the way their father treats their mother. When he hits her, it causes a pain in their hearts, like he’s hitting them. When he laughs at her, they feel like crying because of the intense hurt. They resent the way he thinks he can withhold them from their mother. When she musters a little strength to say “no”, he tells her he will take her children away and kick her out on the street. The children plead with their mother to do as he says. They’re scared. When they disagree with him, he punches them too. Once, he made them choose the weapon from which they’d meet their end, if they carried on being so insolent. Rifle or Machete? Man keeps them under his bed. The children have no doubt he would do this, man likes to tell the story of another man who killed his entire family because the daughter had a boyfriend.

The children turn into teenagers and soon they start forming protective circles around their mum, dad can’t get at her when they’re in the way. But he still does and laughs as he throws his tweenie children off her and away, like bowling balls crashing into sofas and beds. The eldest vows she will leave and one day, everyone will know the truth. That some men use the word dad to use privileges they have no right to. That some dads don’t care for their children but see them as property. The ones who will drag their broods through court just to slander and tear up what remains of mum’s heart.

Mum left him you see, in the end. When the children were old enough, they carried her away. The truth of it all, in the end, is that the best a father can do for his children is to love their mother. He might not agree with what she does, he might not even like her character very much. But he loves the mother of his children because she gave him their precious babies. Those babies can tell when it is not genuine and when their mother is sad. And being that mother is the centre of their universe; dad could try and understand this. And be a righteous father.

Happy Father’s Day to decent dads the world over. You play an important role.

Be good to the mother of your children.

Religious men and child abuse

It was a long hut made of corrugated metal and plastic. They’d constructed it to fit on the side of the house, the back door in the middle just to the right of where the molvi sat on his throne of cushions. There were long benches, a foot off the floor, leaving a space where you would put your knees. We would sit in the prayer position, legs tucked underneath, feet splayed out to the side. He had a shorter bench in front of him; when it was your turn, you would go to him to read. The girls sat to his left and the boys to right. Being closer to the door, the boys always got to leave first. We’d stare on, those few minutes dragging.

I was 4 the first time I was sent to a madrassa to be taught Arabic and Urdu. It was a fair distance from where we lived but my mother would walk us there every day after school. There was just enough time for a quick cup of tea and a couple of biscuits before setting off to arrive just before 5pm. I vaguely remember the noise and close proximity of other children; all rocking back and forth, reciting parrot fashion the Arabic/Urdu alphabet; Aleph – Annar, Beh – Bakra, Theh, Tahthi.. Snapshots of a space in time I have very little memory of but a period during which I happened to learn an alien alphabet, progressing onto the first few chapters of the Quran. Alien because I could read it; recite it off by heart, but with very little understanding of what I was saying. Urdu and Arabic have a very similar alphabet and structure. Urdu was easy to understand, it sounded very similar to the languages spoken at home. But Quranic Arabic is art. It is complex and difficult to master. It was a language I didn’t understand. Shortly after I’d begun the evening classes, we were moved to the plastic and metal madrassa closer to home. By the time I left aged 11, I had read and recited it 3 times and was preparing to memorise the whole thing. I left because I could not take anymore. I had reached an age where I was able to make the decision that what I was experiencing was not normal and I did not want it. I was prepared to face the consequences.

When finding my niche, I did not have to struggle too much. I found learning fun, possibly a distraction, and had an aptitude for it. It helped endear me to the family; they had someone to pin their hopes and dreams on. I progressed very quickly through the Quran; chapter by chapter I impressed not only my family but my teacher. He would ask me to read louder so the other children could hear and ask for me to perform prayer, to show them all how it was done. I cannot remember feeling any joy in showing off my talents. Whilst eager to please, I was painfully shy. Inside I was sinking but I would do what was requested of me because I was afraid. He had a selection of sticks, bamboo and walking, in varying thicknesses. The thinner they were the more they stung. The thicker ones would leave a bruise but he saved those for the boys. Depending on his mood, your punishment was either swift; with a lash on your hand or behind or more in the way of suffering over a prolonged period of time. Children, as young as five and as old as 14, were made to hold stress positions. Kursi means chair in Urdu. Standing, you were required to hold your body in a chair like position, for maybe an hour at a time. If he saw you straighten or you shifted through pain from a cramp, you were beaten with a stick and made to resume position. Make like a chair, or a chicken. Bent all the way forwards, your arms round the back of your legs, you had to grip your ears from between your legs, holding the position for more than an hour.

We were all subjected to these punishments, boys and girls. The molvi relished barking these orders, his eyes moving over your body as you struggled to keep still. I can’t remember how old I was when I first recognised his gaze as something that was unacceptable. I had chosen to sit with my friends at the far end of the hut; it is there I first learnt about sex. I had already seen porn; my father didn’t think to protect us from such things. Aged 7, I’d innocently pressed play on the VCR on his room, my siblings sat on the floor around me. At first, I struggled to identify what I was seeing, I thought they were wrestling. And then, a close up. Horrified I reasoned the man was hurting the woman and hurriedly turned it off, shooing my siblings out of the room. I would later discover all manner of magazines and videos and toys. As I joined the dots in my head, I became increasingly distant and withdrawn from my father. Once, I discovered a video of a couple with their daughter. I never let my dad hug me ever again. We weren’t particularly tactile but that was the nail in the coffin for our father/daughter relationship. I was afraid. And I was also determined to leave the madrassa.

He picked on me exclusively. Or maybe he didn’t and I just felt alone. Aged 10, I was a young developer. My chest had begun to swell and I was due my first period. I’ve read up on studies where girls whose fathers are estranged from the mother begin menstruating, on average, 6 months before their secure peers. From my place at the far end of the hut, I could have a giggle with the other girls; we would make fun of this stupid sex thing and vow it was never going to happen to us. But it wasn’t to last. Just as I began my first period, he insisted I move to sit right next to him.

Knees tucked in, facing the wall, he was sat to my left facing the opposite way. He sat so close to me, his thigh was right against mine. He would stroke my side, pinch my ribs. It was all unwanted. Where once he had stroked my knees, now his hands would wonder up my inner thigh, stopping short of actually touching me between the legs.

In Islam, girls and women are prohibited from touching the Holy Quran during their periods because bleeding is considered unclean.  I risked damnation by continuing to do so. I didn’t want anyone to know I had begun bleeding. I was ashamed of it; I was only the 3^rd girl in my class at school to have started. At this very early stage of womanhood, I was disgusted by the way my body functioned and utterly afraid of how God would punish me for touching the Quran with my unholy fingers. I would wrap a corner of my burqa around my finger so I wasn’t directly touching it.

He yawned, loudly and stretched his arms up wide and then brought his hand down hard to slap me square on the chest. Of course, this was incredibly painful but I stifled my reaction. He felt my barely even there breasts, lingering and stroking. I knew this was wrong. The way he sneered at me, touched my body at his every whim, I was completely dominated. And unable to tell anyone. I was sure they wouldn’t believe me anyway, he was like a local celebrity. A man of God, he was respected and the community would bend over backwards for the good work he did for them.. Educating a new generation of Muslims. He had the opposite effect on me. I became very un-Muslim. I had started to challenge God and thought he must be a pervert too, for allowing these things to happen. This wasn’t my God but a God for men who did whatever pleased them. It was the same God my father, grandfather and uncles held up as an example. And they were all bad people.

Finally, aged 11 I summoned up the courage to say no. My mother would complain that I was a lovely little girl before I’d started secondary school and she could just not understand why I was rebelling now. I refused to get ready for mosque. On arriving home after school, I would lock myself up in the bathroom. A couple of times, my father managed to beat the bathroom door down and slapped me about for being so defiant. But this would last at least half an hour into the lesson so I successfully managed to avoid it. It was only after one of the last beatings in this chapter that I disclosed what had happened to me. My father had dragged me onto the ground by my hair and was kicking me on the floor. I managed to escape and ran upstairs to my bedroom, my mother followed behind. “What is wrong with you?” She pleaded. And I just blurted it all out.

“You, you send me there. To that man. But he touches me! And you won’t stop him”.

She froze. I remember clearly that her eyes darkened and glazed over and she stopped, her breathing silent again. And that’s all I remember. Nothing was ever said or done. It was never mentioned to me again.

I remember it every time I hear a Catholic church story, and wonder how many millions of children suffer in silence at mosques. Of course they might not, but how would we know? Grassroots madrassas are rife in local communities. They are not affiliated with the local government and there is no way of ensuring they adhere to child protection guidelines. I am also reminded of the practice of removing body hair as part of your religion. I have made an association between religious men, the rules and paedophilia. I don’t think anyone could blame me for feeling this way.