Princess Sultana's Daughters

women for the sole pleasure of sex.
    Occupied by the plight of helpless girls and
women in my land, I questioned Aisha closely about the indecent
practice I had heard discussed by a Shiite woman from Bahrain whom
Sara had met and befriended in London some years before.
    It seemed that Aisha’s father did not desire
the responsibility of supporting four wives and their children on a
permanent basis, so he sent his trusted assistant on monthly trips
into Shiite regions in and out of Saudi Arabia to negotiate with
various impoverished families for the right of temporary marriages
with their virginal daughters. Such a deal could easily be struck
with a man who had four wives, many daughters, and little
money.
    Aisha sometimes befriended these young girls,
who were transported into Riyadh for a few nights of horror. After
Aisha’s father’s passion waned, the young brides were sent away,
returned to their families wearing gifts of gold and carrying small
bags filled with cash. Aisha said that most of the youthful brides
were no more than eleven or twelve years old. They were from poor
families and were uneducated. She said they seemed not to know what
exactly was happening to them. All the girls understood was that
they were very frightened, and that the man Aisha called Father did
very painful things to them. Aisha said all of the girlscried to be
returned to their mothers.
    The hard-eyed Aisha wept as she related the
story of Reema, a young girl of thirteen who had been brought to
Saudi Arabia from Yemen, a poverty-stricken country that is home to
a large number of Shiite Muslim families. Aisha said Reema was as
beautiful as the deer for which she was named, and as sweet as any
girl she had ever known.
    Reema was from a nomadic tribe that roamed
the harsh land of Yemen. Her father had only one wife, but
twenty-three children, of whom seventeen were girls. Even though
Reema’s mother was now shriveled and bent from childbearing and
hard work, she had once been a lovely girl and had given birth to
seventeen beautiful daughters. Reema proudly said that her family
was known as far away as San’a, the capital of Yemen, for the
beauty of their women.
    The family was very poor, with only three
camels and twenty- two sheep. In addition, two of the six sons were
handicapped from difficult births. One son’s legs were twisted and
he could not walk; the other jerked in a strange motion and could
do no work. For these reasons, Reema’s father strove to sell his
sought-after daughters to the highest bidder. During the summer
months, the family would travel through high mountain passes, along
narrow, tortuous roads into the city, and a deal would be struck
for the daughter who had reached marriageable age according to
Islam.
    The year before, at age twelve, Reema had
reached puberty. She was her mother’s favorite child, and the girl
attended to her handicapped brothers. The family had pleaded with
her father to let her remain with them a few more years, but he
sadly confessed that he could not. There were two sons after Reema,
and the sister closest in age was only nine years old. Reema’s
younger sister was small and undernourished, and her father feared
the girl might not reach puberty for another three or four years.
Reema’s family could not exist without the marriage money.
    Reema was taken to San’a to be wed. While her
father scouted the city for a suitable bridegroom, Reema remained
in a small mud house with her sisters and brothers. On the third
day, her father returned to the hut with the agent of a rich man
from Saudi Arabia. Reema said her father had been very excited, for
the man represented a wealthy Saudi Arabian who would pay much gold
for a beautiful girl.
    The Saudi agent insisted upon seeing Reema
before he paid the money, a request generally met with the blade of
a Yemeni sword rather than humble compliance from a Muslim father.
The gold in the agent’s hands overcame the religious convictions of
the family. Reema said she was inspected in the same way her father
inspected the camels and sheep at market. Reema confessed she did
not protest the shame, for she had always known she would go to
another family, as the purchased property of another man. But she
squirmed and pushed when the man insisted upon viewing her
teeth.
    The agent pronounced Reema satisfactory and
paid a portion of the agreed sum. The family celebrated by killing
a fat sheep, while the agent had Reema’s documents prepared to fly
to