https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/16552/egypt-christians-abduction-rape
“One of the strategies they used to gain the girls’ trust was for the kidnapper, a Muslim man, to tell the Christian girl he loved her and wanted to convert to Christianity for her. They would start a romantic relationship until, one day, they would decide to ‘escape’ together. What the girls do not know is that they are actually being kidnapped.” — Former Egyptian human trafficker, World Watch Monitor, October 5, 2017.
“The kidnappers receive large amounts of money. Police can help them in different ways, and when they do, they might also receive a part of the financial reward the kidnappers are paid…. In some cases, police provide the kidnappers with drugs they seize.” — Former Egyptian trafficker, World Watch Monitor, October 5, 2017
“If all goes to plan, the girls are also forced into marriage with a strict Muslim. Their husbands don’t love them, they just marry her to make her a Muslim. She will be hit and humiliated. And if she tries to escape, or convert back to her original religion, she will be killed.” — Former Egyptian trafficker, World Watch Monitor, October 5, 2017.
“There are countless families who report that police have either been complicit in the kidnapping or at the very least bribed into silence. If there is any hope for Coptic women in Egypt to have a merely ‘primitive’ level of equality, these incidents of trafficking must cease, and the perpetrators must be held accountable by the judiciary.” — From “‘Jihad of the Womb’: Trafficking of Coptic Women & Girls in Egypt,” a report by Coptic Solidarity.
The kidnapping, sexual abuse and forced conversion of Christian women and girls in Egypt — a “particularly vulnerable group to exploitation” that is quietly living an “unimaginable nightmare” — is rampant, with no signs of easing up. This is the finding of a report published on September 10, 2020 by Coptic Solidarity, an international organization based in Washington D.C., that works to promote equal citizenship rights for Egypt’s Christian minority.
In its 15-page report, “‘Jihad of the Womb’: Trafficking of Coptic Women & Girls in Egypt,” Coptic Solidarity documents “the widespread practice of abduction and trafficking” and estimates that there have been “about 500 cases within the last decade, where elements of coercion were used that amount to trafficking,” according to the UN’s own definitions, particularly per its “Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons Especially Women and Children.”
According to Coptic Solidarity:
“The capture and disappearance of Coptic women and minor girls is a bane of the Coptic community in Egypt, yet little has been done to address this scourge by the Egyptian or foreign governments, NGOs, or international bodies. According to a priest in the Minya Governorate, at least 15 girls go missing every year in his area alone. His own daughter was nearly kidnapped had he not been able to intervene in time.”
The report offers 13 separate case studies. Victims range from teenage girls, to newlywed and pregnant young women, to married women with children. Most of the victims disappeared in one of two ways: either they were publicly kidnapped, often by being forced into a car while traveling to school, church, or work; or — especially true for teenage girls — they were lured into relationships with young Muslim men who promised them the world, until, that is, they realized they had been duped. According to a former Egyptian human trafficker:
“[O]ne of the strategies they used to gain the girls’ trust was for the kidnapper, a Muslim man, to tell the Christian girl he loved her and wanted to convert to Christianity for her. They would start a romantic relationship until, one day, they would decide to ‘escape’ together. What the girls do not know is that they are actually being kidnapped. Most of the time they will not marry their kidnapper, but someone else.”
