The number of infants abducted from hospitals doubled last year, a worrying trend for parents [Sourav Lasker/Al Jazeera] Dhaka, Bangladesh - It
should have been one of the most joyous moments in the lives of Torikul
Islam and his wife Rubina - the birth of their daughter. Instead it
turned into a nightmare after the baby was abducted from the hospital.
Stealing and selling newborns from public hospitals is on the rise in
Bangladesh with at least 16 such incidents over the past year,
according to police and non-government organisation statistics.
With only five babies recovered over the past year, the trend has
spread fear among would-be parents, especially rural dwellers and lower
income groups who use the services of public hospitals for free or
nominal fees.
Torikul - a farmer living in Rajshahi division, 240km east of the
capital Dhaka - admitted his pregnant wife Rubina Begum at the Rajshahi
Medical College Hospital on December 28, 2014. She gave birth to a baby
girl that night.
"As she is the first baby in our family, most of my relatives came to
the hospital to see her the next day. There was this woman in a veil in
the neonatal ward who sat near us," Torikul told Al Jazeera.
The week we passed without Ekhlas was filled with nightmares. We never expected to find him again.
Runa Akhter, mother of missing newborn
He said he went out to bid farewell to relatives leaving only his elderly mother-in-law with the baby.
"We learned later that the veiled woman had advised my mother-in-law
to wipe the face of the baby, and when she had turned to look for a
cloth, she fled with the baby," said Torikul.
Although hospital authorities immediately locked down all exits, the baby thief still managed to escape.
Unlike other parents, the family's horrifying story had a happy ending, as police recovered the baby on January 1.
"After investigating the outsiders who frequented the hospital, we
managed to arrest four people including a hospital staffer," said Anisur
Rahman, the officer-in-charge at the Rajpara police station. Nightmares
Kaosar Hossain's baby boy was stolen from Dhaka Medical College Hospital in August 2014.
Two days earlier, Kaosar, who works at a neighbourhood clinic and
earns a monthly salary of $84, had admitted his wife Runa Akhter.
"She required a caesarean operation as we were expecting twin baby boys," said Kaosar.
"My wife was feeding Yasin, one of the twins, in a bed of the
neonatal ward. As Ekhlas, the other one, cried, a woman who had been
occupying one of the beds in the ward ... walked over and tried to calm
Ekhlas," said Hossain.
When Runa turned around a minute later, she found that both the woman and Ekhlas had disappeared.
A week later a unit of the Rapid Action Battalion, an elite
paramilitary force, recovered Ekhlas from Gazipur area, some 30km
outside Dhaka and made two arrests.
"The week we passed without Ekhlas was filled with nightmares. We never expected to find him again," Runa told Al Jazeera. Stealing babies
According to Bangladesh Shishu Adhikar Forum, a Dhaka-based NGO that
monitors child rights, at least 16 babies were stolen - double the
number from the previous year - and only five were later recovered.
In 2014, 16 babies were stolen and only five recovered [Sourav Lasker/Al Jazeera]
The group said the actual number is likely to be higher as "most
newborn thefts in public hospitals at rural locations remain
unreported".
Officials said it appears the demand for babies is among childless couples and that is driving the infant trade.
Stolen babies are later sold for about $500.
One of the arrested culprits had been delivering babies for poor
parents in clinics, and "often lied to the parents by telling them that
their babies were stillborn. Later, she often sold the same healthy baby
to childless couples", said Commander Mufti Mahmud Khan of the Rapid
Action Battalion.
In the case of Torikul's baby, the kidnappers confessed to police
that they were desperate for a child after their two-year-old died, said
investigating officer Anisur Rahman.
The rise in baby abductions, meanwhile, is driving away patients from
public hospitals. Fahad Ahmed, a Dhaka-based businessman, said he and
his wife would go to a private hospital and pay more because of the
situation.
In a bid to allay such fears, the public hospitals are bolstering security.
"We are increasing supervision in the different wards by installing
more closed circuit cameras and also increasing accountability among
ward in-charges, nurses and other staff," Dhaka Medical College
Hospital official Mushfiqur Rahman Al Jazeera.
Beast: Twisted Roskell, left, raped Rebecca when she was just five
A brave woman has relived the horrific moment a school bus driver raped her when she was just five-years-old and then took her to a cemetery and threatened to bury her there if she told anyone.
Vile Frederick Roskell launched his brutal attack on terrified
Rebecca Leyland after gaining the family’s trust though dating her
aunty.
Rebecca, now 22, said the beast raped her on the back sat of the
school bus he drove, before dragging her to a cemetery and pointing to
two graves.
He then violently warned the shuddering child not to tell anyone, because if she did “I’ll bury you next to them.”
The horrific assault ended a happy child ooh spent with her mother
Sandra, now 45, and triggered a lifelong phobia of school buses and she
would stay late at school and walk home, so scared she was of getting on
one.
But the young woman decided she had to face her fears and speak to
police after she became a mother herself at the age of 18 as she did not
want other innocent youngsters to be abused.
Rebecca, of Preston, Lancashire, told how she was five when Roskell
would take the school bus at weekends and drive his girlfriend’s family
to parks and the coast.
PA
Innocent: Rebecca Leyland, aged four here, was robbed of her innocence when she was raped
They also visited a local cemetery where they would play hide and
seek, but one weekend he let all the children off the bus except
Rebecca.
“The other kids jumped off but he stopped me and held me back,” she
recalled. “His big, bulky body loomed over me and then he pinned me
down.
“I didn’t know what it was at the time. I was only five. But he raped me on the back seats of the school bus.
“I was confused and I didn’t know what was happening. I just knew
that it hurt and I didn’t like it. When it was over I burst into tears.”
Rebecca said she asked Roskell: “Why did you hurt me? I just wanted to play with the others.”
“But he ignored me, and dragged me off the bus and into the cemetery,” she continued.
“He took me to two graves and pointed at them. He said, ‘That’s my
mum and dad and if you tell anyone what I did I’ll bury you next to
them.’ I was terrified.”
From them on the abuse took place regularly.
PA
Fiend: Frederick Roskell raped Rebecca on the back seat of a school bus
She said: “He would abuse me whenever nobody else was around. The
outings on the school bus that had once brought me such joy filled me
with dread.
“I knew what he was doing was wrong, but I was too afraid to tell anyone in case he killed me.”
When she was seven Roskell split up with her aunt, who asked not to be named, and Rebecca did not see him again.
She said: "I was so thankful that I wouldn’t have to endure anymore of his abuse. But what he had done stayed with me.
“As I got older I suffered terrible flashbacks and I refused to get
on a bus ever again. I’d hide at school until the school bus left and
then I’d walk home.
“I was desperate to tell someone the truth, but I was still terrified that Frederick would hunt me down and kill me.”
She suffered depression and anxiety, but in 2007, when I was 15, she met Anthony, then 17.
PA
Brave: Rebecca decided to speak up after meeting her boyfriend Anthony and having a daughter - Alexis
Rebecca said: “He was kind, sensitive, and caring, I felt myself
opening up to him. I told him about what happened six months later. He
was shocked but he held me as I cried.
“He convinced me to tell mum. More than a decade had passed and I was worried she wouldn’t believe me.”
Rebecca’s mum told her to report Roskell to the police but she refused.
“His threat still rang in my head,” she admitted. “I was still too
scared to speak up, petrified that people wouldn’t believe me and would
label me a liar.
“I told my mum I wanted to forget it happened. But burying it was
impossible. I hadn’t seen Frederick in years, but whenever I saw a man
his age, my heart pounded with fear.
“I was constantly looking over my shoulder, afraid of who might be behind me.”
PA
Future: Rebecca Leyland has said she is looking forward to the rest of her life
When Rebecca was 18 she fell pregnant and gave birth to her daughter Alexis, who is nearly four, in March 2011.
She continued: “As soon as I held her I felt an overwhelming rush of
love. I knew I couldn’t let him abuse anymore innocent children.”
She went to the police station in Preston and officers took her statement - a move that Rebecca said was incredibly hard.
“Reliving every detail was awful, it brought back so many painful memories,” she said.
“But Frederick had stolen my childhood and my innocence. I wanted him locked up for what he’d done.”
In 2011 Roskell was arrested but it was July 2013 before the case went to court.
PA
Mother: Rebecca felt she had to speak out after giving birth to Alexis
Frederick Roskell, then 56, and of Blackburn, Lancashire, appeared at Preston Crown Court charged with six counts of sexual assault of a child under the age of 13, and rape of a child under 13 – Rebecca.
He denied the charges but Roskell was found guilty of all the counts which referred to both Rebecca and another child.
In August 2013 he was jailed for 16 years and Rebecca was there to
see her abuser, who she said looked weak and pathetic, sent down.
She said: "In that moment I realised, I was no longer scared of him.
He was a monster, who’d taken advantage of an innocent young girl.
“Leaving the court felt like a huge weight being lifted. I’m now
working to put the past behind me, and I’m focusing on my future.
“My rapist may have stolen my childhood, but he can’t take away my future.”
Detective Sergeant Jamie Lillystone, from Lancashire Constabulary, paid tribute to both Rebecca and the other victim and stressed how the historic nature of the crimes made the case complex.
She added: “It has undoubtedly removed a very dangerous man from the streets of Lancashire.”
Minneapolis police's Somali
outreach gets national attention
35Google +00
At
Minneapolis City Hall, Sgt. Mohamed Abdullahi, right, and officer
Abdiwahab Ali of the Minneapolis Police Department help run the Somali
American Police Association, which is being held up as a model for
police departments around the country and in Canada. Photo: Richard
Tsong-Taatatarii , Star Tribune
By Libor Jany & Nicole Norfleet
Wednesday, January 28, 2015
The
Minneapolis Police Department’s work forging deep ties among local
Somali immigrants is gaining national recognition as officers help
replicate their efforts in other cities.
For the past few years,
officer Abdiwahab Ali and Sgt. Mohamed Abdullahi have helped Toronto
authorities work with Somalis and assist troubled youths.
Only a
few years ago, Ali says, the Canadian city had a serious problem after a
series of unsolved killings of Somali youths and little cooperation
from residents. Perhaps more alarmingly, several dozen Somali-Canadians
had left to join extremist groups in the Middle East such as Islamic
State in Iraq and the Levant, which has seized large parts of Iraq and
Syria.
In 2012, Toronto police officials visited Minneapolis,
which had been lauded as a model for other law enforcement agencies
struggling to hire more East African officers and improve relations with
immigrants. Several members of Toronto’s newly formed Somali Liaison
Unit returned to the Twin Cities the following year, as part of an
officer exchange program between the two police departments.
It is the latest sign that the police department’s work to turn its outreach effort into a national model is working.
Ali and Abdullahi said even basic police work must be delicate and nuanced to build credibility.
“One example is if you don’t know the culture of a police officer knocking on the door,” Ali said in a recent interview.
A
Somali woman is likely to say, “Give me a minute,” Ali said. That can
be troubling for unfamiliar police officers, who might start kicking the
door and saying, “What the heck, why isn’t she opening the door?”
“Which
if you know the culture, a Somali female is going to go cover her hair
because of the religious thing,” Ali said. “Knowing that little thing
can make a big difference.”
Ali says that gaining the Somali
immigrants’ trust has proved challenging because a legacy of police
corruption in their war-torn homeland has tainted their perception of
law enforcement.
Toronto law enforcement officials found the information invaluable after a recent visit by Ali and Abdullahi.
“I
am confident that the knowledge and information gained through the
day’s discussion will bolster efforts to strengthen the relationship
between the police and the Somali-Canadian community,” said Toronto
Police Services Board Chairman Alok Mukherjee.
Now, officials
say, crime in Cedar-Riverside — home to a large percentage of
Minneapolis’ Somali immigrants, as well as other ethnic groups,
including Oromo, Amharic and Eritrean — has fallen steadily in recent
years.
Minneapolis’ troubles once mirrored those in Toronto.
In
Minneapolis, Deputy Police Chief Kris Arneson chatted with officer
Mohamed Abdullahi and Sgt. Abdiwahab Ali about a bike program that has
helped Somali-American youths. Richard Tsong-Taatatarii , Star Tribune
Several young Somali-Americans were being recruited to fight for
terrorist groups in their violence-scarred homeland, while a few were
charged with funding terrorist activity.
The area was once rife with gangs and drugs, police and Somali leaders say.
A
soon-to-be-released Police Executive Research Forum report is expected
to say that by forging such ties, Minneapolis police have created a
national blueprint for fighting crime in immigrant neighborhoods.
Law
enforcement officials recently launched a federally funded policing
initiative aimed at strengthening ties with Somali-Americans. They are
doing this by having police working with elders and young people,
probation officers, prosecutors, business owners and law enforcement
experts to improve relations and reduce crime.
Ali recently recounted how he had responded to a missing-person call involving a Somali youth.
The
teenager’s mother said she was worried because her son had been running
with a bad crowd, staying out late and getting into fights. The teen
eventually returned home, but Ali could not shake the feeling that there
was more to the case.
“The comments that he makes in front of
the mom, for us, we realized that the kid seemed that he’s being
brainwashed as far as a religious way,” Ali said. “The comments that he
made that really gave us a red light was that he said … ‘I can disobey
my mom, based on the religion,’ which was really false.”
The teen later entered a diversionary program that kept him out of jail.
Ali
and Abdullahi are founding members of the Somali-American Police
Association, a national organization that “provides a network for
Somali-American law enforcement professionals and strives to recruit
more police and law enforcement officers of Somali heritage to our
various law enforcement communities.”
Five of its 11 local
members are with the Minneapolis Police Department; the others hail from
St. Paul (which recently hired its first female Somali-American liaison
officer), Mankato, Columbia Heights, the Hennepin County Sheriff’s
Office and Metro Transit police.
In St. Paul, police officials say they have worked relentlessly to build good relationships with Somali-Americans.
“Somali-American
officers are the key to reduce Somali youth violence, which affects the
peace of our Twin Cities,” said Hassan Mohamud, imam at the Minnesota
Da’wah Institute in St. Paul, who is currently traveling in Somalia.
Jaylani
Hussein, the new executive director of the Council on American-Islamic
Relations, said police have made great strides in improving relations.
“I
personally believe that they are breaking boundaries and being really a
great resource for building the bridges between the Somali community
and the police department,” Hussein said.
Libor Jany • 612-673-4064 Twitter:@Strib
Nicole Norfleet • 612-673-4495 Twitter:@stribnorfleet
When
21-year-old Fartuun* left Somaliland 15 months ago, she weighed 60
kilos. Today, at 25 kilos, she is a pale reflection of the vibrant girl
who left home in 2013 to seek her fortune in Europe. But now she’s home
safe after an ordeal that took her from her village to Saudi Arabia,
Egypt and eventually, Libya.
“Fartuun made the return trip to Somaliland from Libya with an IOM
medical escort, because she is paralyzed from her waist down and is not
able to walk without support,” said IOM Libya’s Dr. Aladin Abukashim.
Her rescue is as remarkable as the rigors she endured during her
journey – which included riding in a car trunk part of the way, before
travelling by sea to the Arabian Peninsula and then across the desert to
Egypt and Libya.
Like thousands of young Africans, the
high school graduate and young mother thought she would find work as a
cleaner in Europe and earn enough to pay her way back to school, so that
she could realize her dream of becoming a teacher.
In 2014 over 5,700 Somalis with similar dreams risked their lives at
sea to reach Italy in small boats from North Africa – a journey
migration experts consider to be one of the most dangerous on earth.
An unknown number of Somali, Eritrean and Ethiopian migrants were
among the 3,279 migrants who died in the Mediterranean, according to
Fatal Journeys: Tracking Lives Lost during Migration, a report published
by IOM’s ongoing Missing Migrants Project (mmp.iom.int).
“We thought she was joking when she said she wanted to travel to
Europe. Even though our family might not have everything in the world,
we could have definitely taken better care of her than those men in
Libya who took advantage of her,” said Suleiman**, Fartuun’s brother.
Her ordeal began in 2013, when she fell in with a group of young men
operating a human smuggling ring moving young people from Somaliland to
Saudi Arabia. The trip to Libya took about two weeks, traveling the
whole way with Somalis.
But in Libya things began to fall apart. She tried to work odd jobs
to pay for passage to Europe, but with civil war raging across the
country, safety – not income – became her top priority. The smugglers
who had taken her to Libya grew impatient, finally making her their
prisoner.
“They confiscated her travel documents and threatened to report her
to the authorities if she tried to escape. She was held against her will
for six months, repeatedly abused and eventually fell seriously ill,”
said an IOM Libya staffer.
Fartuun’s case was brought to IOM’s attention when her mother, who
lives in Somaliland, contacted IOM after she listened to an IOM radio
show that draws attention to the dangers of irregular migration. The
radio show, which is funded by the Norwegian Ministry of Justice and
Public Security, is part of an information campaign that sensitizes
Somali youth to the dangers of irregular migration.
It took IOM staffers over a month to find her in a crowded Tripoli
hospital, injured and close to death. She also was responsible for an
enormous medical bill, which she could not pay. In collaboration with
local police, IOM had her moved to another hospital for her protection.
IOM offices in Libya and Somalia then arranged temporary travel
documents for her and organized her evacuation from Libya last week,
flying through Istanbul, then on to Somaliland, where she was reunited
with her family in Hargeisa.
As thrilled as the young mother was to be home, the IOM team was just as gratified.
“Congratulations goes to my colleagues at Operations in IOM Somalia,
who from thin air started building this case and never gave up even when
things felt like she would not be found,” said Mohamed Omer, an IOM
officer in Hargeisa. “I also congratulate IOM Libya colleagues for never
giving up.”
“I have been assisting migrants’ return to Hargeisa for the last five
years at this very airport, but I never felt so emotional like this
one,” Mr. Omer added. “The mother has been crying and kissing everybody
with an IOM badge, while receiving her daughter – it was my proudest
moments in line of duty.”
IOM Somalia Chief of Mission Gerry Waite said: “As the Missing
Migrants Project shows, thousands of young migrants from the Horn of
Africa – Ethiopians, Somalis, Eritreans – are exposing themselves to
these terrible risks and feeding a humanitarian crisis. Increases in
overall numbers of arrivals and deaths at sea in the Mediterranean and
Horn of Africa underscore the high demand for smuggling services and the
complex and profitable criminal networks that move people across
borders. Inter-regional commitment and action are urgently required to
protect migrants.”
Fartuun’s assisted voluntary return was funded by IOM Libya’s NOAH II
regional project, which responds to shifting migratory flows and
increasing migrant vulnerabilities. NOAH II is sponsored by the US
Department of State’s Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration
(PRM).
*name changed to protect her identity **name changed to protect his identity
For more information please contact IOM Somalia. Julia Hartlieb, Tel.:+254 731 988 846, Email: jhartlieb@iom.intor Feisal Muhamud, Tel. +254 721 290 074, Email: famuhamud@iom.int
![The number of infants abducted from hospitals doubled last year, a worrying trend for parents [Sourav Lasker/Al Jazeera]](http://www.aljazeera.com/mritems/imagecache/mbdxxlarge/mritems/Images/2015/1/20/201512084224244734_20.jpg "Abducting and selling babies in Bangladesh")
