Why a Booktrail?
1990s, 2000s – Modern day slavery does exist and this is a shocking account of one woman’s experience of it.
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What you need to know before your trail
Zana Muhsen, is British through and through. Born in Birmingham she also grew up there so knows nothing else. Well aware of her Yemeni heritage though, when she is offered the chance to have a holiday visiting relatives in North Yemen, she jumps at the chance.
This was no holiday however. she and her sister – 15 and 14 at the time were sold into marriage and from the moment they stepped into the country, that country became their prison.
This is their story of what happened next.
Travel Guide
Birmingham to Yemen could not be more different. But when you’re of Yemeni heritage, it’s only natural that a holiday there will be interesting and an insight into where your family comes from and to understand your own culture.
Birmingham
But these are Birmingham girls. They work in the family shop and cafe, fight with one another but love each other deeply. Nadia is the tom boy whilst Zana is the more ladylike but they know that their father minds when they speak to a man of any kind, questioning them and warning them not to. He is moody and they soon learn to sneak out so they are able to do what their friends are doing. The fact that he follows them at times was particularly unsettling.
Yemen
But the reality of two girls is heartbreaking to read about for ‘their country’ is nothing more than a prison –
“I felt glad when I thought about dying as that would be a way out of the Yemen”
How a man can sell his daughters to men under any circumstances is unbelievable to most people. Ruled by their husbands, treated like slaves and having to survive in the most remote and mountainous places, they really are left to their own devices and survival and then escape is on their minds.
An insight into the custom of Yemeni child marriages and why this still happens in the modern age.
Where Next?
