Sudan: Investigating the 'Islamic spiritual healers' sexually abusing women
Posted: 18 Aug 2023, 23:34
Investigating the 'spiritual healers' sexually abusing women
August 8, 2023 BBC Arabic
By Hanan Razek
BBC News Arabic
A hidden world of sex abuse and exploitation by men working as "spiritual healers" has been uncovered by BBC Arabic.
Spiritual healing, also known as "Quranic healing", is a popular practice in the Arab and Muslim world. It is mostly women who visit healers - believing that they can solve problems and cure illness by expelling evil spirits known as "jinn".
Testimonies gathered by the BBC from 85 women, over a period of more than a year, named 65 so-called healers in Morocco and Sudan - two countries where such practices are particularly popular - with accusations ranging from harassment to rape.
We spent months speaking to NGOs, courts, lawyers and women, gathering and verifying stories of abuse. An undercover reporter who underwent treatment with one such healer for our investigation, was herself inappropriately touched before fleeing the scene.
Warning: Readers may find some of the details below distressing.
Short presentational grey line
Dalal (not her real name) sought treatment for depression from a spiritual healer in a town near Casablanca a few years ago, when she was in her mid-20s. She says the healer told her the depression was caused by a "jinn lover" who had possessed her.
At a one-to-one session he asked her to smell a scent he said was musk - but which she now believes to have been some kind of drug, because she lost consciousness.
Dalal, who had never had any sexual experience before, says she woke to find her underwear had been removed, and realised she had been raped. She says she began screaming at the raqi (Quranic healer), asking him what he had done to her.
"I said: 'Shame on you! Why did you do this to me?' He said: 'To make the jinn leave your body.'"
She says she didn't tell anyone what happened, as she was so ashamed and was sure she would be blamed. When she discovered a few weeks later that she was pregnant, she was terrified.
She even thought about taking her own life.
When she told the healer about the pregnancy, he replied that the jinn must have impregnated her. Dalal says she was so traumatised by her experience that when her baby was born, she refused to look at her, hold her, or even give her a name, and gave her up for adoption.
She told us that if her family found out what had happened to her, they would kill her.
... https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-65264921
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August 8, 2023 BBC Arabic
By Hanan Razek
BBC News Arabic
A hidden world of sex abuse and exploitation by men working as "spiritual healers" has been uncovered by BBC Arabic.
Spiritual healing, also known as "Quranic healing", is a popular practice in the Arab and Muslim world. It is mostly women who visit healers - believing that they can solve problems and cure illness by expelling evil spirits known as "jinn".
Testimonies gathered by the BBC from 85 women, over a period of more than a year, named 65 so-called healers in Morocco and Sudan - two countries where such practices are particularly popular - with accusations ranging from harassment to rape.
We spent months speaking to NGOs, courts, lawyers and women, gathering and verifying stories of abuse. An undercover reporter who underwent treatment with one such healer for our investigation, was herself inappropriately touched before fleeing the scene.
Warning: Readers may find some of the details below distressing.
Short presentational grey line
Dalal (not her real name) sought treatment for depression from a spiritual healer in a town near Casablanca a few years ago, when she was in her mid-20s. She says the healer told her the depression was caused by a "jinn lover" who had possessed her.
At a one-to-one session he asked her to smell a scent he said was musk - but which she now believes to have been some kind of drug, because she lost consciousness.
Dalal, who had never had any sexual experience before, says she woke to find her underwear had been removed, and realised she had been raped. She says she began screaming at the raqi (Quranic healer), asking him what he had done to her.
"I said: 'Shame on you! Why did you do this to me?' He said: 'To make the jinn leave your body.'"
She says she didn't tell anyone what happened, as she was so ashamed and was sure she would be blamed. When she discovered a few weeks later that she was pregnant, she was terrified.
She even thought about taking her own life.
When she told the healer about the pregnancy, he replied that the jinn must have impregnated her. Dalal says she was so traumatised by her experience that when her baby was born, she refused to look at her, hold her, or even give her a name, and gave her up for adoption.
She told us that if her family found out what had happened to her, they would kill her.
... https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-65264921
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