The Jordan Harbinger Show - 1057: Nina Aouilk | Ending Forced Marriage and Honor Killings Part One
Episode Date: October 1, 2024End Honour Killings co-founder Nina Aouilk reveals the shocking reality of forced marriage, domestic slavery, and honor killings in the West. [Pt. 1/2] What We Discuss with Nina Aouilk: Nin...a Aouilk grew up in an abusive household in the UK, where she was treated as a servant and subjected to severe physical and emotional abuse by her family. At age 14, Nina was gang-raped by her father and his friends, resulting in a pregnancy that was forcibly aborted. Her mother blamed Nina for the assault. At age 15, Nina was traded by her father to one of her rapists in a sham marriage arrangement, where she continued to face extreme abuse and exploitation. Nina witnessed horrific cultural practices like bride burnings and infanticide of baby girls in her community, with little intervention from authorities. Despite the trauma, Nina found ways to persevere, such as excelling at work and finding moments of kindness. Her story shows that it's possible to overcome even the most difficult circumstances through resilience, seeking opportunities, and holding onto hope for a better future. As co-founder of End Honour Killings, she now empowers and educates women and girls worldwide to break their cycles of abuse and live the lives they deserve. And much more — be sure to tune in to part two of this conversation later this week! Full show notes and resources can be found here: jordanharbinger.com/1057 If you love listening to this show as much as we love making it, would you please peruse and reply to our Membership Survey here? And if you're still game to support us, please leave a review here — even one sentence helps! Consider including your Twitter handle so we can thank you personally! This Episode Is Brought To You By Our Fine Sponsors: jordanharbinger.com/deals Sign up for Six-Minute Networking — our free networking and relationship development mini course — at jordanharbinger.com/course! Subscribe to our once-a-week Wee Bit Wiser newsletter today and start filling your Wednesdays with wisdom! Do you even Reddit, bro? Join us at r/JordanHarbinger!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
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She would push my head into the bin and tell me that it's not your father's house
that you think you can eat here.
And she would make me eat out of the dustbin.
part of me's hungry, part of me's scared.
But you get to the point where you just kind of give up on everything.
I got to the point I'd given up.
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Today, this episode includes graphic depictions of violence and abuse.
So maybe no kids in the car for this one.
Go listen to a previous episode about something more kid-friendly, like nuclear warfare
and how we're all going to die horrible, painful deaths, or, I don't know, hostage negotiation.
But seriously, this episode is a doozy.
Today we're talking with Nina Ulk.
Her story is just incredible, so harrowing and also quite inspiring.
Growing up in a conservative Indian family in the United Kingdom, she was subjected to
unbelievable abuse and an attempted to honor killing and has come out the other side extremely
strong and resilient. Well, that's enough from me. Here we go with Nina Oek. Tell me about growing up
in the UK. So my childhood was quite normal for me, how I saw it. My parents had a really
lovely big house, as I describe it. It was a corner plot, really nice house. My father was a very
astute businessman. He started bars in a place called Loughborough in Leicestershire, but he also started
buying property and what he would do is go into properties where elderly people living and he would buy
off them before they died and say, look, I'll pay you and you can stay there as long as you need to.
But he was very bright. It was very intelligent compared to a lot of other people from my culture
who thought they just had to get a job and that was their end to the means, sort of means to the end.
But my life was comfortable, I would say, in comparison to some people. But my childhood
wasn't. It was such a contrast. So although the house was grand and the staircase was grand,
my life was very much of poverty, although I didn't see it at that time. I mean, yeah, I had a roof
over my head. I was warm, I guess, but I didn't have, and I've described this before, that my
bedroom was different shades of grey, whereas my mother's was different shades of peach and pinks,
and I would love to go in there and change her bed sheets on a Saturday like I had to do with the chores
because the carpet was so soft, and this carpet, this rug here, just reminded me of it,
my little toes would sort of go into the carpet and feel really soft and changing her bed,
although it was a nightmare getting the bottom sheet on and off.
I still can't do it.
It makes you feel anybody.
But it was still soft.
Everything was soft and clean and it smelled good.
Whereas my bed had no bed sheets.
It was dirty and a bit grimy because I wasn't allowed a pillow.
I wasn't allowed these things.
But I just saw it as that's my place.
You didn't have a pillow or sheets on your bed?
No, nothing.
So it was a bare bed.
It was just a mattress.
And it was on top of a divan.
So it's not on the floor.
It was slightly higher up.
But that's just how I saw my life was supposed to be.
And I never questioned it because when you're a child, you accept things so easily,
you know, whatever's given to you take.
So childhood for me was good, I guess, up to a certain age.
And growing up in the United Kingdom, I stuck at like a Sautham because of where we lived.
My father decided you want to live in a very pro-white British area.
At the time, skinheads and mods were the thing back then.
Skinheads and what?
Mods.
Mods.
They were called mods.
So it was people that were, skinheads would, you know, obviously have the punk type of hairstyle, but they were quite racist.
And the mods were kind of new romantics, I guess.
I think it was...
Is it M-A-U-D-E?
M-O-D-O, like M-O-D-O- Like Mod, yeah, like M-O-D-S.
Does that stand?
I don't really know what it was for, but I just knew that was the terminology.
But they were the ones that would leave you alone, but they were more, like I said, the new romantics.
But the skinheads wouldn't.
They would deliberately make your life hell.
and the school that we went to was quite a trek, as in quite a walk away.
But the thing that I remember about school the most is that there would be the word scrap shouted out,
and everyone then starts to chant it, scrap, scrap, scrap, scrap, scrap, scrap,
that's like fight, yeah.
But then it would be at the bottom of a pile of people or my brother would be because we'd be beaten up.
But that was normality.
And I think now I look back, I think it wasn't normal at all.
No, that's prosecutable offense, everybody gets expelled type stuff.
When you're there and you don't know any different, it's normal.
So although I was getting a different kind of abuse at home to school, they were both connected.
So for me, it was normality.
I was either beaten at home in a different way where I was winded or slapped or kicked or punched.
Or I was punched and beaten at school, you know, by multiple people.
So I really didn't think it was a them problem.
I thought it was a me problem.
Yeah, because you saw other kids not getting beat up at school.
Yeah, because we were the only ones of color, if I can use that phrase.
Okay, yeah, I think you can. I think that's the phrase you're supposed to use. I don't know. Good thing you said it and not me. If one of us is going to get, no, I think that's the nomenclature we use. So are you Sikh, and is that a religion or is it both? So Sikhism is a religion. Okay. I always say that everything that's happened to me has got nothing to do with the religion. Sikhism is actually, I'm not saying it because I am a Sikh, but I'm saying it because I, as a child, read the Quran, which is the Hindu religious text, the Quran, which is the Muslim Hindu text. The bivism.
obviously the Christianity. I read nearly every kind of religious text I could get as a child
because I was looking for answers. But every religious text taught me to be a good person,
not to be a bad person, don't lie, don't cheat, don't steal, don't hurt anyone. And Sikhism is very
much about we're one. So you and I are one, we're equals, that we should be of service to
others, which is how I live my life now, not because it's a religion, because it's just the only
way to live, in my opinion. So I won't allow people to say it's because of religion.
because it's definitely not.
Religion might have an influence,
but my personal religion doesn't.
It's a cultural thing because culture is continued
by generation after generation after generation.
And that's where the problems lay
because nothing changes.
So something has to change for this to stop,
but people don't speak out
because girls are silenced as I was.
You know, I was non-verbal growing up.
I didn't make eye contact like we have made today.
I should be ashamed of myself in my culture
to make high contact with a man because I could be seen as flirtatious.
Or you might take it in that manner that she's flirting.
I notice a lot of old cultures do this.
It's so ridiculous to me when you learn about like certain sects of ultra strict Judaism, for example.
And it's just almost based on the, like the idea that men have this uncontrollable penis that like anything can set it off at any second.
And if that happens, well, it's not their fault.
It's that woman for showing off her neck or something.
And you're just like, guys, personal responsibility.
get it to get like it never made any sense to me.
Like no matter how much gymnastics you do, it just doesn't make any sense to me.
It's all externalised.
It seems to be the consensus, doesn't it?
Wherever you are across the world, you'll be persecuted if you do make that sort of
eye contact even now, you know, what's going on around the world.
But for me, you know, it was a very much nonverbal thing.
My culture is very much the girls keep their heads down.
We are created to give birth or to work in the kitchen.
It's you that will get called upon first, go help your mom in the kitchen, or you go and
cook.
it won't be a case of to say to the brothers or the sons get up and help your mother or go and help your mother bring in the shopping.
That woman has to do it herself. She knows that's her burden to bear.
Yeah, okay, but the abuse you suffered extended far beyond being made to do all the cooking and the cleaning and things like that.
Is it true they thought you carried bad spirits or is this just they thought girls in general carried bad spirits?
I'm not the only one that has come forward because, you know, since I've been speaking out and I went viral in February, I've had over 15,000 messages starting with Help Me All I Need Help.
Oh, no.
And that's from around the world.
So this isn't even an England thing or an American thing or an Australian thing.
It's a global thing whereby girls are told they are bad.
They are carrying bad spirits that there's some sort of magic within them that's evil.
And they believe that because if you tell your child, you know, they're so influenced.
At the minute, they are little sponges.
If you tell your little child, you know, this cup is only daddies.
They know that cup is only daddies to pick up.
They won't pick it up because they know it's daddies.
Yeah, I wish my son respected anything that I said.
But yeah, in theory, you can do that.
You mentioned 15,000, and we're going to mention your nonprofit multiple times during this,
but in case anybody's just in urgent need of help, where are you receiving these messages and what do you do with these messages?
So a lot of people find me all across social media.
Luckily, I'm Googlable.
I'm sure that's because of my surname, which has every,
I'll accept E.
Yeah.
Every vowel accept E.
I was like, how do you pronounce this?
And then when I wrote it, you came up immediately.
And I thought, oh, that's handy.
It's a good surname.
I'm thankful for.
I'm grateful.
But my non-profit is called end honor killings.org.
And people can find me just by looking for me, either that or London's life coach,
who I'm known as.
My arms are open to anyone, not even from my culture.
I say to anyone that's out there, if you're struggling, you're not alone.
And I know the importance of that because I felt alone most of my life.
So for anyone that's hiding behind a closed door, stopping themselves from crying, I've been there.
If you have sat in your car and before you go in the house, you're trying to shrug off the tears
or the fact you feel you can't go on, I've been there.
And I don't want you to be there.
I want to help you into this place that I'm at, which is complete freedom and just peace of mind.
You mentioned you were nonverbal.
Surely you talked at school.
I didn't really speak very much because my parents had almost threatened me in a way, not even taught me,
you know, that I shouldn't speak, I should stay quiet.
So I was a very, even now people say you're so softly spoken, but it's not deliberate.
You know, it's just one of those things that stays with you, I think, through life.
Seems quite normal to me.
I'm not a very loud person.
Yeah, no, I did speak at school, but I wasn't the most talkative.
I was the one that would sit right at the front with a hand up, you know, pick me, pick me.
Because I wanted to please the teachers.
I wanted somebody to like me.
That's cute.
Yeah, it's cute even though it's for sort of sad reasons.
Because I can picture this very eager young child who probably,
loved school because I would imagine school would be an escape a little bit, well, literally an escape
from your homes. It was despite the beatings at school. But school was where somewhere I found
a different version of Nina. We all have different versions of ourselves when we go to the doctors,
when we go to, I don't know, a new meeting when we're networked and we find a different
version of us. And I had a different version of me and I knew that I was very able to read and write.
I was very able. And I would lose myself literally in a book. It's that phrase, you know,
terminology and I would believe that I was Rapunzel. I've said it before, but I'll say it again.
I really believed I was Rapunzel at one point and I was kept in this tower and that somebody
would come and save me, but I didn't realize that then that it was just me that had to save myself.
Right, right. That is interesting. It does sound like Rapunzel.
Because were they keeping you in your room at home or were you allowed to hang out in the
house? Because you mentioned your room was gray, but it almost sounds like a prison cell.
I believe it was a prison to a certain degree. Now, looking back on it, I mean, I've spoken
to various non-profits and I work.
alongside other non-profits because I believe we have to do things collectively.
We can't make a change in the world alone.
Especially not something like this.
I mean, to get the authorities to investigate abuses that are quote-unquote cultural practices
is tough, even though we're talking about murder essentially with honor killings.
Yeah.
I feel like when I talk to friends of mine that are FBI agents about this, they're like,
yeah, of course we investigate that, but a lot of times the community won't cooperate.
And even when they do, it's like, do we want to get?
get in the middle of all this. And I'm like, what are you talking about? It's a murder. What are you talking
about? Of course you want to get in the middle of all this. She was murdered. It's an interesting thing that you say
that because I'm currently working with 20 quite high profile solicitors, as we call them, lawyers,
back home. You know, I was pitching to them and they said, lot, you'll be lucky if one of us gets to
say yes, because we're so busy. And it's a pro bono. We don't know if we can do this for you.
But by the end of it, and I wasn't doing a hard sell, I was just being me. They all wanted to
work with me. And the purpose of us working together is to change the laws, the wording within
the laws that exist, to take away the word honour killing, because as my TED Talk says, there's
no honour in killing. Interesting. And to replace it with the word, just murder and attempted murder,
they can have a sort of paraphrase that it was influenced by culture, but not so that it would
carry so much strength in a courtroom whereby that person's sentence is lessened, which later on
We'll talk about that happened with my father.
If you're in a street gang and you murder a rival gang member, you get honor among your gang.
Why isn't that treated as an honor killing but something else that's cultural, which is very similar in nature, that obviously should not lessen the sentence.
So I 100% agree with you.
I mean, you would never give a gang member a lighter sentence because he said, well, the thing is my chosen family wanted me to do this.
Oh, well, in that case, here's a lighter sentence.
I mean, you would never ever do that in any other scenario.
So I agree.
And also, you see, people won't speak out.
I'm a target, so I'm called a liar, I'm called a Jezebel, I'm called all sorts of things.
You know, LinkedIn had to put a filter on my account because I was being sent messages from this Middle East.
And it was a picture message of my head being decapitated because beheading is the most honorable form of keeping that honor.
So if they were to chop my head off, they are retaining the honor in the community because I'm not speaking out just about my culture.
I'm speaking about any culture that carries such a horrible act against a young child.
who's vulnerable, who doesn't deserve that.
You know, I'll stand by that.
That makes me very much a target.
Sure.
And I often think when you're doing something that people don't want to hear about,
they try to bring you down or try to bring your character down because then it makes
people doubt you.
But I believe, and I would say this to anyone out there that thinks nobody will believe
them to stand in their truth because you have to be true to yourself.
You have to be honest because a lot of us will compartmentalize our truths and hide them and
bury them and then later on they come back over and over again because that's the
trauma lives within us. It's very ironic that somebody would say, you're a liar. There's no
honor killings. Here's a picture I photoshopped of me beheading you. We would never do that,
except you just photoshopped yourself doing that to me, to what, prove that you would never do that?
I mean, it's a ridiculous kind of argument to make. It's insane, actually.
I believe the truth always comes out in the end. Well, we're doing that right now, or at least
we're trying. With the way you were brought up, not hinder your development as a child a little bit,
I mean, if you're not encouraged to be social, I assume you didn't have friends over to the house.
Were you allowed to do after-school activities?
I mean, it seems like this is really restrictive and would cause some other damage to you in terms of your learning and development.
Yeah, I mean, they say the first seven years of your life influence who you become as an adult.
And I'm still very much, I think patience is probably the word I've created out of that inability to express myself.
I can express myself perfectly, as you can tell.
But I will watch a lot of the time and not speak out straight away.
I will often sort of a more of a sort of watcher.
But it does influence you.
It doesn't matter who you are.
It took a toll on me, I'm guessing.
At some points, you know, I did feel which will get to desperately depressive states of mind
because there's only so much that anybody can take.
By nonverbal, my life sort of from the age of six was sitting in my room,
literally pressing my ear against the door, as I've described.
The door was extremely rough.
was one of those wooden doors that hadn't been sanded down. I was so keen on being part of the
family. I desperately wanted to hear what they were doing, how they were moving. I could tell
who was moving, who was opening the door, who was coughing. And I used to pretend I was down there
with them, you know, sitting on the sofa, watching TV. So I was a really lonely child, I guess.
But I was only allowed to come out of the room when they called me. So I waited upon the word
which, which is what they called me. In the Indian word, it's called Putany, which means which,
like a ghost, like a kind of evil entity.
And I would go very quietly down the stairs,
but I was running because I was so keen to get to the kitchen.
Because my expression of love was to cook that food and to give it to them.
Whether it was received with love is another thing,
but it was always made with love.
I never, you know, sort of bashed at the mashed potato,
whatever I was making, the rice.
I would always do everything so lovingly that my mother's going to eat this.
I want it to taste nice.
My father will have it.
Oh, my brothers will have this.
This is their favorite.
This is what I'm going to make.
I used to get excited for them.
never really thinking about myself.
So the selflessness still is within me.
I know that.
It's a weird tension hearing something like that, right?
Because it's heartwarming, but then you realize that they have you enslaved.
So it's actually really horrible.
So working with the nonprofits I do now, the word modern day slavery has come into my life.
I understand.
And if I can explain to another person, if you're kept against your will,
if you cannot come out of your room, when you're not part of a family,
you are not allowed to eat with them.
You're not allowed to sit with them.
You are, in effect, modern day slave.
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Now, back to Nina Oak.
It doesn't matter that you're their daughter,
because they don't seem to care if I can put it that way.
What about your mom?
First of all, she must have enabled this,
because otherwise I don't see how it could go on,
but didn't she have any sympathy or love for you?
As a parent, I just can't get there.
I can't even get close to where I would allow this to happen,
even if somebody was like, I would let my partner
kill me before I let them treat my child that way.
You're not supposed to get it.
Yeah, I can't get it.
I've tried to get it and I can't get it.
I can get to a lot of weird places with people I interview on this show
where I'm like, let me put myself in the situation of a kid growing up on the streets
and joins the mafia and becomes a kill.
I can get to her in the shoes of somebody like Sammy the Bull
quicker than I can get into the shoes of somebody like your mother.
Yeah, I don't think you're supposed to understand because you're not that person.
And this is the problem with society.
Often we try to put ourselves in a position and say, well, why did she press charge?
Why did the mother help? Why did the father do what he did? Why did the brothers not step in? But we're not those people. We need to just stay true to ourselves. And people only do what they know. And I get a lot of stick for saying this. But if you don't know how to drink or you don't prefer your coffee white, you're only going to want black. If someone offers you a coffee with milk or a milk substitute, you'll be very frowning upon it. As I'd say, well, why would you even do that? It's not the done thing. It's not how I'm. And with my parents, I've described it before, they came from India in the
1960s with their bags packed very tightly with their cultural beliefs, they decided they would bring
that forward. They imposed that upon me and my brothers. So my mother did what she knew in the sense
of she thought I was bad. So girls were not rejoiced, girls are not celebrated. You know,
when boys are born, we hand out sweets in my culture, the Punjabi culture, sweets are handed out
parties. There's a lot of bangor, a lot of dancing. When girls are born, there's nothing. I mean,
that in itself should be a question for people to ask, why are you not celebrating your daughters?
But they're seen as almost disposable people. They're seen as temporary children that are going
to one day be someone else's. I see. We're not keeping them. What did your parents, you mentioned
your dad was an entrepreneur. Did your mom work at all? In the beginning, my mom used to do a lot of
home sewing in the sense of somebody would drop off a load of clothes and she would stitch them together.
So she had a machine at home, but it didn't last long because I think she did that up to the age of my age of 10 that I can remember.
And then she stopped because she didn't need her.
My father was making more than enough money.
I don't know how to transition to this.
So I'm just going to ask if you can tell me about the assault.
Yeah.
So as I always say, my life was very normal.
I was a happy go, lucky child as happy as I could be.
But when I got to 14, I'm changing as a young girl.
I'm developing.
By this time, we've got this gorgeous dog.
You know, we had a little doggy in our life.
and I describe her as my only friend.
She also gave me a lot of warmth in bed on a cold night.
And because she was there, sometimes I didn't want to get up.
You know, I didn't want to wake up.
But my job was to cook and clean for the rest of the family.
And I remember my mum coming in the room many a night from the age of probably seven upwards.
My dad would come back with multiple friends, eight friends normally.
And you know my culture, we don't say names.
So if one of them was called Jordan, I would call him Uncle, never Jordan.
It's not because he's related, blood related or any way related.
we just out of respect don't say their names.
On this particular night, I was super tired.
My hormones are kicking in.
I didn't want to get up.
And I believe that we have this system,
that's little messaging system,
little people almost running inside,
just going, no, no, no, no, no, don't do it.
You know, that fight or flight thing.
And this particular night, as soon as I woke up, I had it,
almost like a tingling sixth sense
that it's not going to be good.
Whatever's going to happen today,
something bad will happen.
But I knew also there was no way
out. I had to go down those grand stairs that we had. I had to cook the food. I had to take it in.
And in my childhood, a lot of people have memories of a toy or a car, you know, or a, I don't know,
a duvet or a blankie. In my childhood, I have a very prominent memory of a white, huge oval tray.
Like a food tray? Like a food tray. So it was a serving tray. And it had like silver handles on the end.
And that was my symbolism of childhood, I guess, because I spent so much time holding this tray.
And, you know, I remember using the tray to pick up the food, drop off the food.
And, you know, my father was in the front room, which were the guests are, because we always have a guest room and a family room.
I remember walking in, looking at the patterns on the carpet because I was very daydreaming and I probably still am.
I'm walking in to pick up the dishes because he's called me.
I remember that night they were awfully drunk because they were continuously making noise
and, you know, it was very loud.
Are these all also Indian guys, or is it like white guys and a random collection of your dad's friends?
Or were your dad's friends all from the same culture?
No, they were all from my father's culture.
And it was like a little meat that they would have because they lived in different areas.
So they would all get together every Friday or Saturday and go down to the pub and completely get hammered, I guess, as we call it.
And come back to my father's because he was the one with the bars.
So he had the alcohol.
And I would provide the food because my mom would.
would wake me up. And when I did go in on this occasion, I remember my father touching me for the
very first time. He'd never held my hand or brushed my hair or in your life. In my life.
I was 14. I don't even know what to make of that. I can't. How is that possible? I mean, I guess
that speaks for itself. I think that was normality as I keep saying for me back then. I know now,
looking back, it's not right. None of it. At the time, it's just the way it is. You know, it's
that happened my life. I'm picking my daughter up so often. She pushes me away because she's sick
of me. Yeah. It's what we tell ourselves, I think, as well, and I was telling myself that was
normality. But on this particular night, I was scared. I'll be honest, I was actually scared.
And I walked in my head down and I have the tray in my hand. And as I said, he's the first
time he touched me by grabbing my wrist. And when you grab my wrist with such force, the tray fell.
Sorry. Yeah, it's starting for me too. I'm not going to lie.
And my father's an ex-professional wrestler, so he was very strong, you know,
he was well-known for his wrestling at that time.
He was on TV and all sorts, but he used that force to, and I was only a small child
because I was not fed well, I wasn't eating.
But he threw me onto a low table like the one we have in front of us, and he was the first
person to rate me.
You know, he kept his hand over my mouth.
Your father?
Kept me pressed down by holding me down.
You know, he held my hand for the first person.
time. I couldn't open my eyes and I didn't want to. So I kept them wide shut, but I was passed from,
sorry, I was passed from person to person. I was thrown around the room literally. I was spat upon.
I was bitten. I was punched. I was kicked. I was almost punished, I feel, for being a girl.
But every man had... Can we have tissues, please?
I've got my...
You've got.
I've got my...
I was literally thrown around with such a force that I lost consciousness a few times.
I don't know what a normal rape is, and I'll probably get in trouble for saying this,
but it didn't feel normal at all for the way I was being gang raped.
And, you know, there was a level of aggression they were using with me whereby...
It was almost like they were frustrated and they were taking it out on me.
You know, I remember somebody nearly breaking my arm,
And I was sure my arm was broken until the next day.
But there was not one part of my body that wasn't covered in blood or a cut or a bruise or lots of bite marks.
It's truly psychotic.
And it's shocking that a group, I mean, I don't even know where to begin.
Your father was involved in this.
One of my questions was, where was your dad?
But he was there.
I mean, he took part in this.
And these men all knew you.
And they all knew you were a child.
And they'd all met you many times before.
It's just, I can't wrap my mind around this.
I remember on the night wanting to scream, but I think all the screams were internalized.
It was almost like I'd lost any hope that I ever had.
How did your mother, she must have known this was happening.
Yeah, I mean, a lot of people do ask that question, and my brothers and my mother were all upstairs asleep.
But I don't think you could have slept through that level of noise because they were exceptionally loud.
And, you know, there were plates being broken because of the force I was being thrown around.
and bottles being thrown around
that didn't necessarily break
but the noise was still happening
and it's early hours of the morning
so the world's asleep
apart from this one room where the sacks are taking place
and I just didn't know how to stop it
I didn't know what to do
I kind of just allowed it I guess
because I didn't know what else I could do
Well what could you have done
a 14 year old girl against a bunch of grown men
I mean it's you didn't stand a chance
How did your mother respond after the attack?
I mean she...
I ended up waking up.
I didn't know when I passed out.
I have no idea.
I remember that a lot of people left
and some people stayed on
because they wanted to carry on with this rape, this attack.
And the ones that had stayed back were quite violent.
I remember that.
They were exceptionally violent.
My mother woke me up in the morning
because she opened and closed the door so many times,
such a force.
I just woke up by the noise.
So I remember my head was facing, I think, the right,
and I remember seeing the wall.
I remember seeing the food on the wall.
I remember seeing broken plates.
I remember thinking to myself,
I'm in so much trouble.
How am I going to get out of this now?
I'm going to be punished.
I felt I had done something wrong.
You feel like you're the cause of everything
because you're the bad spirit.
You're the person who's brought it upon us.
You know, you had some influence,
but you don't understand that you are the innocent party,
that you're actually a victim.
I didn't see that.
My mother got me to get up.
I got up. I wasn't dressed from my waist down. And she told me to go and wash, which I did. And when I came down, she handed me a bucket and told me to clean the room up. And I cleaned it. And I remember looking back thinking it looks like nothing's ever happened here, but it still is happening within me. And I slept for days after, but no one really checked on me. No one was really bothered.
Wow. I would assume after that, any time people came over to the house, you were terrified. My legs would shake. I had to carry on this.
same thing every Friday or Saturday. I would see the same people, not physically, but I knew
their presence. I would hear them. My instinct was constantly flinching. I was flinching because I was
scared, scared because I didn't want it to happen again. I almost felt their eyes upon me even though
I wasn't looking up. You ended up pregnant from this assault, correct? Yeah, I got to 15 and I
realized I was pregnant. And, you know, back then in my schooling, there wasn't a lot about pregnancy.
and not a lot.
I don't even think we were told about periods.
And I went home and told my mother
that I was pretty sure my periods had stopped.
She was the one who told me I was pregnant
and I'd brought it upon myself
and that I was disgusting that I should be ashamed of myself.
So I was ashamed because she told me I should be.
And that led to an abortion.
And it's another real clear memory in my mind
because not because of the procedure.
You know, I remember the procedure and the sort of stainless steel-looking type of trolley things they put us on, made us lie down, the gowns.
I remember it all. But what I remember the most is when I'm sitting on a grass verge, dressed in a hospital gown with all the other women.
But I'm not a woman, I'm a child, I'm a small girl. And I'm looking around and thinking how nice the grass felt and how the countryside was really nice because we'd travel to go to this place.
And maybe that's the reason I love the country.
know because I found some sort of peace.
But it was a lady that brought over a cup of tea, which, you know, very British thing.
But I'd never been given anything in my life, not a present, not a birthday card, nothing.
And it was the love that she extended just by handing me this cup of tea.
And it had a biscuit on the side.
And I remember thinking, how evil are you for her to do that?
But more than that, she actually stroked my hair.
like I really wanted my mother to do my father.
And she made me think about kindness.
And I still carry that with me now.
And I wanted to be like her.
I wanted to be kind.
But I also started to question how evil I was inside
because she hadn't caught anything.
She hadn't withered and died in front of me
because she'd touched me.
She'd made contact.
So that for me was life-changing.
That's so interesting.
That small act of kindness
changed your entire perception of yourself from the sound of it.
It did.
If you have an abortion in a culture like this, does that cause problems later on?
Or is it a big secret?
How does that work?
It's a huge taboo.
You know, getting pregnant, having sex.
It's a huge taboo.
If I'm being honest, I was probably one of the most naivest 15, 14-year-old girls there was.
I didn't really know.
I didn't have terminologies now.
You have terminologies for different things.
But I didn't have it then.
I just knew that it was wrong.
and I felt wrong.
I didn't like who I was.
But my parents on the way home were saying that, you know, now she can't have an arranged marriage.
And looking back on it, I couldn't have an arranged marriage because of them.
It was never because of the abortion.
Sure.
But I actually thought it was because of the abortion.
And my mother's very upset and almost to a point frustrated with my father and me to say that how can she carry on going to the temple.
She loves to go to the temple.
People will laugh at her now.
It's all about other people.
it's not just in my culture, it's in many cultures where it matters about what everyone else thinks
and your choices are often influenced by that because you don't think about yourself and you're
feeling guilty for thinking about yourself. So I took it upon myself that I was this problem
and that they didn't know what to do with me and I would take my own life because I didn't really want
me because they didn't want me but no one in my life had ever really shown me they wanted me.
I was always a hindrance.
So I did, after a couple of days, I did take an attempt on my life by an overdose,
but it didn't work, obviously, because I'm sat here.
But I'd got to a point where I realized, you know, I wasn't happy at all,
the life wasn't normal, and I went through a very depressive phase in my life.
Understandably.
It just baffles me probably shouldn't,
but it baffles me that your father would allow this to happen
and then be upset at the,
consequences that were clearly foreseeable and obvious. It's not like he didn't, I mean, he must
have known this is going to happen as a result of this. And then, again, I can't make sense of it at
all. You know, like, you tell yourself something and you believe it. I feel that's their thing.
You know, my father told himself it wasn't him. It was my fault. So he believed it. And I feel
that's why the narrative continued in that way, that what will we do? How will we make this?
She's brought it upon herself. You know, and I believe that's why he said it so many times.
times that he believed it. Even now, he says I'm a liar because he believes it. In his eyes, he's
done nothing wrong. But we can't take that away from him. That's what he believes. But we know
it's wrong. He's obviously got psychopathy or something. I mean, there's no, nobody rapes their
own daughter and then thinks, oh, this is normal. I don't care what culture. It doesn't make any sense.
You've read all the holy books. I'm pretty sure that's a taboo in every single one of those books.
I could be wrong. Your parents say they're going to, what, send you abroad? So the agreement.
they made was they would send me to India. So many girls get taken out of school in the UK,
in America, in Australia, all over the world. They are taken away at a certain age and sent to
India and people get told they've gone to stay with relatives. No one really questions it. The teachers
don't question why. But the purpose of that is either to keep them in, say, Pakistan, for instance.
It's a case I've dealt with recently where the girl will get sent there at the age of 15
impregnated, she'll stay there, she'll be forced to live with her spouse, up to an age where
she can come back after 21, they'll bring her back. Because no one's going to ask questions of
what's happened in that meantime. She'll come back with children, she'll come back with a husband,
and their job's done. You know, she's settled now, as they call it. But with me, they were thinking
about sending me to India to kill me, because I had brought shame. You know, my whole being was bringing
shame. But that didn't happen because somebody stepped in to say they would take me. And I was 15,
And it was one of the men that stayed behind to continuously rape me.
He said he would have me if my father paid him.
So they came over.
I was called down.
We have a ceremony where a veil is placed upon your head.
And as an engagement, I didn't know what was going on.
I look at the photos now and I'm very upset because I see myself looking down, scared, not knowing what's happening.
And I feel for that picture almost that girl to know what's coming next for her.
But it was all part of my journey, I understand also.
But I was traded to one of the men that raped me, my father's friend,
and I was traded to him for sexual reasons.
My father paid him a lot of money in cash and gold,
also appliances for their kitchens,
because we didn't really have them back then.
We're talking about the early 80s, late 80s rather.
And I went there under the condition that I would marry his son in a sham,
because his son was similar age to me, but he had a girlfriend already from a white British
background, which is taboo. So for the sake of face in the community, it would look like he'd
married me and everyone would win from this apart from me, I guess. My mother-in-law wanted me as a
domestic servant, and my mother was happy with that because it's what I did already. I'd been
perfectly trained. So that's what happened. I got traded at 15 and I was married 16 to
turning 17. And I have to say it was the most horrific four years of my life.
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Back to Nina Oak.
This is so unbelievable.
So this is happening, folks who are listening to this,
this is not happening in India if you were working out and you miss this.
This is happening in the United Kingdom.
A little girl got traded for a microwave and a toaster.
I mean, I don't mean to be flipping about it,
but this sounds totally ridiculous.
And you were supposed to be married to the son,
but really you were essentially a slave for the father.
And he was already married.
This is an off-the-book's wedding, right?
I assume it's like just sort of private transcript.
It was never legalised.
I didn't have a, I don't know what you call it, but a registry wedding.
We call them back home.
So it was never registered, but it was all done in the temple.
And there was a party afterwards.
You know, I was sent home because I wasn't part of the party, which was a rare thing as well.
You know, not many people did that.
They would allow the bride to sit there.
Whether she wanted to be there or not, she would sit there.
But I wasn't.
And that showed the level of the way my father and mother saw me, you know.
I remember walking into my in-law's house, they stripped me in front of everyone.
which was humiliating, so I was a young girl who felt embarrassed, but it was to almost shame me
in front of her guests to say I have control over this person. And the room I was given was a
downstairs room, which was just like a little cupboard hole, like a cubby hole thing.
And there was a tiny little bed. The whole house was tiny compared to my parents, which I
realized how well off my parents were at this point. There was no grand staircase that I could
sit at the bottom of and look at my dog from the top. You know, there was none of that. My dog
obviously wasn't with me. And I felt really alone. I felt very much lost is the only way I can
describe it. I was given to this little room without the door because my father-in-law had access to me
without too much noise. So he would come down sometimes four, five o'clock of the morning.
He was probably the most strangest character I've met today. He was very aggressive in controlling.
But he would do things like strip me, sit me on the floor and tie me up with a coat hanger.
and the metal would dig into my skin.
But it was just so that he would leave the house.
They would all leave the house.
And he wanted to see if I'd stayed in the same place.
And I was so scared.
I wouldn't even cry because they might be able to tell from my eyes I've been crying.
But there was no way of me asking for help because in my culture we're taught not to ask for help.
We're taught to stay quiet and obedient.
And there's a shame of saying somebody's done something sexual to me.
There's a stigma.
It's just something we almost internalize and never allow anyone to know is how.
happened. And that's not just in my culture. I'm learning that. It's a lot of victims do this
because they feel they're not good enough. There's a lot of us out there that think that,
and I'm here to prove them that they are good enough. One thing that just is sticking to my cry here,
you get married in this sham wedding or this off the book's wedding in the temple, and no one
thinks, this is a little weird that a 14, 15 year old girl is getting married. That's actually 16.
16. But it's still weird. Even in the 80s, it's weird. People won't speak out. You know, it's that
uncomfortable conversation they don't want to have. They'll whisper. There'll be lots of whispers and gossip.
Like, isn't she too young for this? Wow. Yeah, it is. Maybe she's pregnant with the boys.
Well, a lot of the gossip was that I had a love marriage at that time because I knew the boy through the family.
So a lot of people said it was a love marriage. I remember standing at one time and people behind me saying this.
And I thought to myself, is it a love marriage? Because, you know, I was so influenced. I was like, is it a love marriage? And I just sort of catch myself saying, no, it's not a silly.
You know, you're not wanting to get married. I'm always romanticising every single.
situation, everything. And I don't know, I always used to think it can't be that bad until I got
there and realized how bad it was. But my mother-in-law was exceptionally mean to me. She was very
cruel. She would stab me with scissors, but my mum would occasionally do that as well, growing up,
but she didn't do it as much. I mean, my mum would do it when I would go near her when she
was sewing and she would try and push me out the way, so she would use the scissors. But this lady,
she was deliberately getting the scissors to poke me. I would sit there, she would just
poked me really hard with them and it hurt.
Of course.
You know, it was the whole thing of me being in the kitchen as the servant,
cooking up the meal and she would deliberately open the drawers into me, you know,
with the force.
But it was more than that, you know, she had a real anger within her that she would
project upon me.
And it was the whole, I talked about it before, but it's the whole denying me of food.
I didn't really have food as a child, but I thought when I got here,
I would be able to plate myself up a meal.
and I'm mistakenly, it's one of the regrets I have in life, I'll be honest, doing this,
because it lives with me and it's so painful that I'm not sure even how to get rid of it,
and I'm good at getting rid of everything.
She would wait for me to plate my food and then take the food and the plate and the plate
and throw it into the dustbin, and then she would push my head into the bin and tell me that
it's not your father's house that you think you can eat here.
and she would make me eat out of the dustbin.
And you know what I used to start eating
because part of me is hungry, part of me's scared.
But you get to the point where you just kind of give up on everything.
I got to the point I'd given up wanting to eat
or even wanting to be there.
This whole situation is so bizarre, right?
Because I have no sympathy for somebody who abuses anyone like that.
But on the other hand, surely something must have happened.
This may be something similar.
It happened to this woman.
I mean, do you ever think about that?
Because not to excuse any of her behavior, but normal people don't do that.
I feel that she was angry because her husband was raping me.
Well, yeah.
I feel that she was angry because I was younger than her, maybe prettier than her.
But a lot of women in my culture hold this kind of anger within them.
And anger's normally born at a frustration, as you know.
So, I mean, I can't put myself in their shoes because I'm not them.
But maybe the way they have been treated, they're frustrated with it,
and they don't know who else to project it upon apart from the girl that comes into the family
or their own daughters, because that's what happened to them.
So it's that repetitive cycle.
It doesn't mean it's okay.
It doesn't mean it's condoned behavior.
It just means that if they don't know any different, they're going to carry on this cycle of abuse.
Tell me about this bride burnings phenomenon.
This is something that I'd never heard of until...
Yeah, it's very common.
And it's sad to say that it was very common in sort of the early 90s, which is where I'm at now,
because I was there for four years, whereby brides would be imported.
I'm going to use that word deliberately,
so people don't have a problem understanding what I'm talking about,
but they would bring a bride in from Pakistan or India or wherever it would be,
and the girl would end up having a daughter.
They used to do actually, this is going to be really hard for listeners to hear this,
but if a baby girl was born at that time,
they used to bag the baby up and suffocate it.
Oh, my God.
And then they would bury the babies.
And I know this because my mother was one of the places they would come to have the babies when I was little.
Was she a midwife or dula or whatever?
No.
No, there would be a collection of them.
There would be lots of them.
And I think they would go from houses to houses.
So sometimes it would be our house.
She would be there and I would be there.
Obviously, I'd be doing the maid service, the domestic service.
So I'd be told, go and bring this, go and bring that.
And I knew what was going on.
And that also made me feel very grateful that I was alive because I knew they were killing the girls.
But they would bury them in the gardens.
And what?
Yeah.
So in the backyard for people who are, because we say backyard, I don't know why do I want to say garden.
Even if there's a garden there.
They would bury a plastic bagged baby.
Yeah, a newborn.
In the yard.
If it's a girl, yeah.
Because there were no abortions happening that people really could afford then either.
Sure.
And there was no way of scanning if it's a boy or a girl.
So these girls were having baby girls going back to the Burning Brides.
And because they were having baby girls, they would then think it's a baby making me.
machine formed as a woman that's the providing only girls, we need to get rid of her, not understanding
it's the male that makes the decisions on these things. And they would pour petrol over the brides.
Sorry. This is so disgusting. I would be walking home from work sometimes and I could smell the smell
of human flesh. Oh my God. And I would often see police cars and police men, but they never
seem to do anything. And then one day I happened to walk behind two police officers who said,
oh, we're just going to call it and it's a suicide. And I thought, well, they would never help
me. You know, that thought was completely out of my mind anyway because in my culture we're taught,
don't go to the police, they don't help us, because you're not white British, they won't
help you. So we're almost programmed that certain different cultures and communities won't help
us for particular reasons. So we have that here too. So we believe that. I would be in the house sometimes
hearing the shrieks of women because the houses were so small they were next to each of the
terraced we call them so you can see into everybody else's back gardens and things and I was
terrified of fire with reason sure that it would be my turn because the threat was there because
I hadn't had a baby people were talking about why isn't she had a baby not understanding I'm
being raped by my father-in-law not my then-husband as was seen and I just felt this ticking
time almost that's going to be my time soon it's going to be my time soon
So I was living in a form of anxiety 24-7.
I really was in a really bad state.
Do you think the police knew it wasn't a suicide or were they just not getting any cooperation
and they're just like, yeah, the way these girls commit suicide is they light themselves on fire with gasoline.
The police completely knew.
They knew.
It seems like they would have to know or investigate a little bit.
You know, if it's once, I understand they might not accept it's a murder, that it's a suicide if it's twice.
But this was repetitive to the point where it was just continuing.
It's a common thing.
To say it's a common thing is scary.
It's horrifying.
And it's also very bizarre to think that in some neighborhoods across England,
there are just baby skeletons in the backyard.
That's also incredibly creepy and horrifying.
I think some were found, actually, some point.
I remember not correctly where,
but there were some baby fetus remains found.
Oh, my gosh.
And I want to remind everyone, this is the United Kingdom.
This is not rural India.
This is not ISIS-controlled Syria.
where you expect almost to hear this.
It's two hours away from London, it happened, yeah.
It's just crazy.
And that's two hours on those windy roads
that you all have over there.
Unbelievable.
It's unbelievable.
Eventually you get a job,
which actually seems like quite a blessing.
I was told to get a job as soon as I went into the marriage
because they were very greedy for money.
I realized afterwards, you know,
they didn't have as much wealth as my family,
but they expected it was almost like
they felt that they should have it.
And I was really lucky because I went into work for a lot,
corporation and I was the first person again of color from the ethnic minority that worked
for this company because my father had placed me in this area of being white British so I spoke
really well as I still do and that was different for them because normally the communities
were stick together so the accents would stay thick I see so you were on the phone you would
not know who I was or where I originated from I just sounded like another white British person
so that helped me so you know it's always a positive out of a negative I guess and I became a manager
because I was so keen to earn more money, you know, standing at a coffee machine without any fear,
because what did I have to lose? They said, don't go to the executive floor. I went to the executive
floor, you know, where I could at least be a little bit of a rebel. And I stood there, not even
knowing which buttons to press, a guy came along and said, did you want coffee? I said, I need a job.
I said, can he give me a job? And he said, I'm in marketing. I can give you a job. But he just liked the
fact I stood there and I asked for it. And I would say to my children, I've taught them since so little.
if you don't ask, you don't get. It's true. And I did. I ended up getting a great job. I was on a really
good wage, even by today's standards, it's a good wage. But that wasn't enough for them. They wanted
more. The family's taking your money. The family had all of the money. It went straight into their
account. I never saw a penny of it. So I got a second job and the second job is selling kitchens.
And I loved that too because I was on the phone just talking to people. It was high, high,
we've got somebody in your area. And it was never a hard sell. I've never done that. It was if they
needed it. They'll say, yes, that was my philosophy. You know, if they wanted it.
If I make enough calls, there'll be somebody that needs it.
And that was what was happening.
They were coming to me almost.
You know, it was like maybe I was calling from the universe, however you want to see it.
But I was getting all the sales and I was making a lot of money for them.
You mentioned you were the only person of color, but did you ever meet other Indian people and tell them anything about what was going on in your life and have them be like, that is not normal?
Yeah, my second job, I met a girl that looked like me.
I always say looked like me.
But, you know, like children when they see characters on a cartoon, they like.
Oh, it's me because they recognize that in themselves.
And there was another Indian girl.
She was dating a Nigerian man.
I didn't like him.
I always got a bad vibe off him from day one.
And I think you have to really trust your instincts.
If something feels wrong, it's like if you're sitting on a bus or on a train.
And you don't feel right sitting next to somebody just move.
Follow your instincts.
Don't stay there.
And I regret that sometimes.
But I know it was part of my path to her.
But she was really lovely.
She said to me, you know what?
Your ankles bleed through your socks.
What's going on?
And I didn't want to say to her what was happening.
But I did tell her and she said, you know what, that's wrong. Go back to your parents. It's been four years. They've changed. My parents don't mind me dating somebody out of our culture. Things have really developed. You need to go back. And I believed what she said me because I wanted that to be the truth. I didn't think about the fact my father had raped me that my mother never spoke to me, that my brother's always beat me. I didn't think about that I was shutting my room day in, day out. I just thought, suddenly romanticising Nina thought, I'm going to go there. My father's going to give me a big hug.
pull me in and love me and look after me forever. Wow. And I guess I was going to say, look,
you have a job. Theoretically, you could just say, hey, stop mailing my paychecks to the horrible
family. And you could even live on your own, maybe. I could have. A lot of people want to know
why I never thought that. But when you're programmed almost to believe that you can't do it
on your own, that you're a nothing, which is what I was told from birth, that you're nothing,
you're a nobody, you're just fat and ugly. I didn't think I could do it on my own. How could I?
I didn't even have the awareness that I'd got this amazing job by myself.
I thought they had got it for me somehow.
They had forced me out to work.
They had made this happen.
When somebody gave me any sort of well done, you know,
or sort of celebration to me, I would take it as, you know, pass it on to somebody else.
No, it's not me, actually.
It's my mom and dad told me this or my mother-in-law told me to come and get a job.
You know, I'll never accept it and say to myself, thank you so much.
It's me.
I've done this on my own.
And we still, people do that out there.
They're still doing it where they don't know how to take a complex.
because it's programmed in them from the beginning, that it's not on them.
So I didn't do that.
I didn't believe I could make it on my own.
I didn't believe I had anyone.
I felt also I would bring more shame from the culture that people would laugh at my parents
if I didn't go back home.
At least if I went back home, there'd be a chance.
I see.
Okay.
Had you seen your family while you were in this weird marriage?
Was there a contact during that time at all?
You don't see your family once you're married.
They cut you off.
So for four years, I'd had no contact.
I hadn't see them and I longed to see them. I longed to see my dog. I wanted to hear the way my brother coughed. You know, I wanted to be back in that room.
So these girls who are imported from Pakistan also just never talked to their family back home again?
Well, I mean, my culture is from India, so I had more to do with the Indian culture. But, yeah, the girls that have been brought in from Pakistan, India, wherever it may be Greece, even sometimes it happens.
Greece. Yeah, they would never see their families. They wouldn't hear from them. Nowadays, you do see your families. But there's still a difference.
Once you're married, you're married.
And that's the consensus.
You've gone.
You no longer our daughter.
You belong to this family now.
You're about to hear a preview of the Jordan Harbinger show with Yasmin Muhammad,
who grew up under the tyranny of radical Islam.
This religion forces people to just get stuck in time.
It is the root of so many of the evils that are happening in these countries.
This is why we can't progress.
We always hear about how.
how the caliphate is coming, how Islam will rule the world,
how Muslims will get rid of the infidels,
we're going to kill off all the Jews,
and Muslims are going to control this whole world.
And the whole world will go back to Allah, the way it should be.
Everybody on the planet will be praying to a loom.
These people are indoctrinated into a belief system
that turns them into monsters.
It erases their humanity.
It tells them your basic humanity
and what you believe to be right and wrong,
you must ignore and you must follow what you are told to do.
This is happening in your backyard.
And if you don't care about what's happening in Afghanistan
or what's happening in Pakistan, what's happening in Saudi Arabia,
then care about what's happening on your own soil, at least.
Terrorism is the art of fear.
And the only way to defeat terrorism is to not be afraid.
in the face of these people that are telling you,
you are not allowed to have free expression,
you are not allowed to have free speech,
you are not allowed to have an opinion,
you say, okay, watch this, watch my opinion,
watch my free expression, express itself.
For more about Yasmin's harrowing story and her escape,
check out episode 748 of the Jordan Harbinger show.
All right, that's the end of part one, part two,
coming out here in just a few days.
All things Nina will be in the show notes at Jordan Harbinger.com.
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