Parents Make 10-Year-Old Egyptian Girl Their Houseslave
It’s very generous for a mother and father who already have five children to take in a 9-year-old girl from their homeland, and treat her as if she were her own daughter. But when the parents choose instead to treat her worse than they would the family cat, it’s criminal. Abdel-Nasser Youssef Ibrahim and his ex-wife Amal Ahmed Ewis Abdel-Motelib were both sentenced to prison this week for keeping young Shyima captive in their home for two years as the family’s unpaid servant. In a delicious twist, District Judge James V. Selna decided to augment the jail time by demanding the couple pay Shyima $152,000 in back wages.
The bad news: Shyima’s time in her home prison was torture. The parents apparently worked the girl to the bone, verbally abusing her along the way. Mom, dad, and the five kids called her “the stupid girl” – a prophecy they fulfilled by allowing her no schooling, no playmates, no downtime. She was threatened with arrest if she dared step foot outside the home. Her best friend was a spider. When police found her, her skin was dead and hard. She was only rescued after a curious neighbor wondered why she wasn’t in school.
The disgusting news: Ibrahim and Abdel-Motelib, who are facing deportation following their jail sentences, tried to maintain that they were helping the girl and being charitable toward her. Hmmm…how do you say “pigfuckers” in Arabic?
The good news: Shyima, now 17, is being adopted by a California couple, Jenny and Chuck Hall, who apparently treat her the way a child deserves to be treated – as a daughter, not as a slave. Shyima, as a parent, let me say that my heart breaks that you had to endure this bullshit. May you continue to heal, and end up healthier and happier than you could ever imagine.
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October 25th, 2006 at 4:13 pm
That my friend is freaking unbelievable.
October 25th, 2006 at 5:23 pm
Yeah. You have to wonder what goes through some people’s heads…
October 26th, 2006 at 6:00 am
I am afraid this kind of situation is typical as a “social safety net” in India, Pakistan and most of Africa. I just call it child labour and child slavery.
This is becoming more common in North American and Europe because borders are open and human trafficking is not seen as a real problem, but it involves up to 2 million women and children in the US right now. To prevent it, pay attention in your neighbourhood, document and report everything to the authorities.
October 26th, 2006 at 6:32 am
“What happened was due to my ignorance of the law,” Motelib told the judge.
You have GOT to be kidding me. Who would even try that?
he stole a little girl. Can we cut HIS hands off?
October 26th, 2006 at 9:41 am
Yeah, I don’t buy that “ignorance of the law” crap. Treating someone like dogshit shows a lack of compassion and morality – NOT a lack of knowledge.
Kate – great point. Human trafficking is a serious problem worldwide. Unfortunately, I’m about to publish a Renee Terrell story which demonstrates that, when it comes to bad parenting, friends and neighbors will go to great lengths to manufacture excuses.
October 28th, 2006 at 7:42 am
I’m taking a folklore class at University, and there’s a lot of talk about why cultures come up with similar stories of parental persecution, stepmothers, and Cinderella figures. Some of the most popular theories among Freudian and Jungian academics seem to me way out there. These stories start because they’re *true*. If I had a dime for every wicked stepmother, abusive father, and child treated like Cinderella that I’ve ran into, I’d be a millionaire.
November 1st, 2006 at 7:41 pm
Poor Shyima! Her first parents should DIE A SEVERE DEATH!!!!!!! Well, at least Jenny and Chuck saved her! Arabic liars! Shyima is not stupid at all!
November 8th, 2006 at 11:09 pm
I just wonder as well, what the 5 other biological children thought of this all? See, sometimes its best you don’t let your children be adopted. Really, you never know if others can care for your own child like they can care for their own blood!
November 20th, 2006 at 6:54 am
People like this disgust me to the uttermost….if I ever met someone that tortured a kid in any sort of way, you would not even be able to hold me back. I’m only sixteen and I feel way too spoiled even though I’m not as spoiled as probably everyone in my school. How can people treat another human being: a self image…as if they were absolutely nothing….as if they shouldn’t even exist at all….Slavery alone is stupid and uncalled for….people shouldn’t be soo lazy and do things themselves
July 31st, 2007 at 8:28 pm
[...] Parents Make 10-Year-Old Egyptian Girl Their Houseslave Domestic prisoner [...]
July 2nd, 2008 at 3:34 pm
Okay first of all, the other 5 children, they weren’t all biological, some are from foster homes and were adopted, like Shyima.
And second of all, don’t try to bring race or religion into this because this does not only come from arabics. This is happening aaaall over the world. Every religion, every country.
What I have left to say is that I am happy of how what a mature, beautiful young lady she is today.
December 29th, 2008 at 5:47 pm
The nerve! Just look at history and see how White people enslaved and tortured people and to this day many do not feel anything was wrong with it. Go read some history on what really took place as the whites brought Africans to America. Now they want to throw people in prison for having maids?;when the type of slavery they forced on innocent Africans was the most inhumane ever!
This American mindframe is backwards. Suddenly white people are judging what is right and wrong when it comes to slavery…culture?
mmmm, Ok buddy.
First of all, what these people in the story were doing is cultural. Even though it was illegal by our laws here, it was not intended on being malicious and evil.
Whereas, the slavery and brutality the whites oppressed Africans with was intended to be harsh, brutal, murderous, and evil in every way. No comparison.
They give prison time to the family’s that hired the girl as a maid (which is a normal cultural way of life in their country). Yet what punishments whites get for REAL atrocities? Nothing!
That family had to pay her 75,000 for 2 years of maid work? What type of reparations have Africans received for 400 years of slavery?
So, Im sorry if I can’t respect the prosecutors in this case. I’m happy the girl is able to live a life alligned with the culture of America, since she is living IN America. That part I’m happy about. But the white people who are supposedly sooooo against such injustices! Get out of here! Trying to imprison people…and if you asked those prosecutors would they put their grandfathers and grandmothers in prison who had Black maids all during the 50’s and 60’s…treating them as 2nd class citizens….(just look at our older movies. It was a normal thing.) Do they even look at that as an injustice? They would say, oh no…my grandparents were being gracious to hire them. (same thing the Egyptians said, about their own hiring of maids right?)
December 30th, 2008 at 10:48 am
Their should be a life line where these
children can be adopted by loving
people that want to extend themselves to children in need and
people should have a watch in their
neighborhood for children in slavery
situations.
December 30th, 2008 at 3:36 pm
ThatzLife:
Yes “slavery and brutality the whites oppressed Africans with was intended to be harsh, brutal, murderous, and evil in every way.”
Thats why it was abolished.
Just because they are of a different culture doesn’t mean they have the right to treat a child like that. She wasn’t a HIRED maid as you state, she was a CHILD.