Girl from Somalia

FOR OUR SISTERS PAYING FOR THE CRIMES OF MEN.

Three men raped 13-year old Aisha Ibrahim Duhulow while she was travelling to see relatives. She was stoned to death for adultery on October 28, 2008, in Kismayo, Somalia.

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It was another warm October evening. Soon the dark night would swallow all. She was waiting for her execution. Still a tender youth, she felt monsters of pain and betrayal in the blackness, salivating to turn her soul cold, hateful. What did it matter that her charge was for a crime committed by another?! At her trial, the tribe’s elders reckoned she was to blame for three adult men raping her when she walked alone to see her grandma. “Adultery,” they judged. “Death by stoning,” they ruled. “Tribal matter,” they replied to family cries and pleas from the human rights community. They decided to end her life before it could fully blossom.

On the warm Kismayo evening, this girl child had only one choice left to make. Let anger, vitriol and hopelessness consume her being, spend her last moments on this Earth questioning and fighting what could not be changed or accept her fate with grace. And although I did not witness the carrying out of this cruel injustice, from her eyes, I know deep down this brave female spirit chose peace. With the first stone whizzing through the air, she turned to love. With another and another breaking her bones, she silently surrendered into the memories of the kindness of her ayeeyo’s (grandmother) smile, and the softness of her omi’s (mother) touch. With the delirious pain taking over her conscience, she was welcomed by the warmth of the sun, the scents of the soil, and the colors of the desert flowers. At last, in God’s embrace, she was free and at peace.