Syrian sex slaves were tortured on a table set up like a crucifix, beaten, and raped an average of 10 times a day, according to one of the victims, who recounted her nine months of horror in Lebanon’s largest sex trafficking ring.
The 24-year-old Syrian woman about how she lost ꧋her faith after being lured to Lebanon from Syria, where she had worked as a waitress in a café.
“Honestly no, I no longer have faith after what happened,” Rama — not her real name — told the paper. “Because when we were beaten, I wou🦄ld say, ‘God, please save us.’ And [my torturer] would say, ‘You whore, you think God will save you?’ And he w🍰ould beat me more. We couldn’t say the word Allah, not even within our hearts.”
Rama described how she fell for 🐼a ruse when a man told her she could leave her war-torn country and earn $1,000 working for a restaurant in Lebanon.
‘I no longer have faith after what happened. Because when we were beaten, I would say, “God, please save us.” And [my torturer] would say, “You whore, you think God will save you?”’
- Rama
She was among as many as 75 Syrian women freed in March from two brothels, 🅘Chez Maurice and Silver-B, part of the꧃ largest sex-trafficking ring ever uncovered in Lebanon,
More than a dozen people were arrested and indicted on sex-trafficking charges in the case, which Rama said included being beaten with an electric baton, while a bathroom mat was crammed i🦩n her mouth to keep her from screaming.
“We slept where we worked and we couldn’t go out, not even to see the light outside,” said Rama, who also described how women would be forced to undergo abortions after unprotected sex with customers. “The 🔯windows were painted black. We couldn’ꦺt see the light, or breathe the air outside.”
The alleged enforcer in the operation was a man called Imad al-Rihawi, a formeཧr interrogator in Syria’s ai♕r force intelligence service.
“It’s not that he made us feel like slaveꦐs — we were actual slaves,” said Rama, who was kept at Chez Maurice in Maamaltein, a seedy area of Jounieh, a city known as home of Lebanon’s red-light district.
Rama said she initially told al-Rihawi that she didn’t want to work as a pr꧃ostitute.
“He said I was going to whether I like it or𒁃 not. And then he began beating me. He beat me until I surrendered, and told him yes,” ꦜshe told the paper.
Rama and the 28 other women housed i♐n Chez Maurice with her were forced to have sex as many as 10 times a day on weekdays — but the number of customers often doubled on weekends, she said.
Women who had not yet lost their virginity when they arrived had the🤪ir hymens broken with a bottle, she said.
And those who refused customers’ requests would be punishe🌊d with beatings. They 💎had to collect and turn in at least $50 in tips from customers a day.
Rama said she was finally able to escape from the nightmare along with five othe♔r women by wrestling a female guard and running out the back door — barefoot and in their paja🅺mas — and taking a cab to the southern suburbs of Beirut.
Despite the crimes committed against her, she does not plan on sharing her ordeal with her own fa𓂃mily.
“I can’t just go to my sister and tell her, ‘Excuse my language, I was working as a whore,’” she said. “‘🌼My dear sister, I’ve been a whore.’ Or to say it to my brother. It’s not a small thing to say.”
Lebanon’s weak human-trafficking law — which requires that victims 💯prove they were fo🐠rced to act as prostitutes — directs the Social Affairs Ministry to establish a trust fund for victims of trafficking, but the ministry has not yet established the fund,
There havౠe been no known convictions for sex trafficking in Lebanon since the law was passed in 2011.
As for Rama, she said she wan♋ted to stay in Lebanon and live by herself.
“Whenever something bad happens, it brings back everything we went through,” she said. “All the things that happened to us, we can never forget🉐 them.”
