“We are all Khadija”: Teenager from Morocco raped, tortured and tattooed by gang

The mother of a 17-year-old Moroccan girl who told police she was gang raped, forcibly tattooed and held against her will for two months recalled how her daughter was abandoned by two men in the family home and her daughter’s body bore the scars of the horror.

The shocking case has sparked a public outcry in a country where violence against women is widespread but largely ignored. People have taken to social media to demand justice and a petition campaign has been launched using the teenager’s name: “We are all Khadija.”

The teenager, whose story has dominated Moroccan media since an online video was published last week showing her arms, legs and neck covered in crude tattoos and cigarette burns, told authorities she was released in mid-August after two months in captivity.

In an interview on Wednesday, her distraught mother said she fainted when she saw her daughter’s violated body and asked if the girl would ever be the daughter she knew again.

“Why did they do this to my child? Are they beasts? Will my daughter ever be the same again?” asked the mother, speaking on condition of anonymity to protect the privacy of the family and her daughter, whom she addressed only by her first name.

Given the stigma associated with sexual abuse in this Muslim country, the girls’ parents initially refused to report their case to the authorities.

“But she insisted,” her mother said. “She took the family documents and just went to the gendarmerie. I followed her.”

As the mother spoke, rabbits and chickens roamed the cement floor of the family’s dilapidated house in the town of Oulad Ayad in the Atlas Mountains of central Morocco, a rural region rife with poverty and high rates of illiteracy and unemployment.

Twelve suspects are in custody for allegedly kidnapping and raping them, and three are still at large, according to Ibrahim Hashane, a volunteer lawyer following the case. He said on Wednesday that an investigating judge had ordered an investigation and a hearing was scheduled for September 6.

In an online video interview with Moroccan television channel Chouf TV last week, the girl claimed her captors “attacked her one by one,” burned her and refused to feed her or let her shower. She showed crude swastikas and other tattoos, as well as cigarette burns on her hands and legs.

The teenager said two men kidnapped her at knifepoint while she was visiting her aunt during the holy month of Ramadan in May and June. They then sold her to other men for money or drugs. She said her abductors gave her drugs that left her unconscious for days.

Call to end Moroccan rape culture

The horrific report sparked calls to end a culture of turning a blind eye to sexual assault and other violence against women, with nearly 75,000 people signing a petition calling for action.

In an article titled “We are all Khadija,” Moroccan author and filmmaker Abdellah Taïa criticized what he saw as Moroccan rape culture and called on the government and King Mohammed VI to intervene. The article was signed by dozens of Moroccan intellectuals.

“We will continue. A new source of collective enthusiasm. Nothing is being done,” he wrote. “And as always, it is women who pay the price for all the dysfunctions of a society that still does not want to grow.”

In Morocco, rape victims often face backlash in conservative society and are often blamed for the suffering they endure.

In the case of Khadija, relatives of some of the suspects and other people have come forward to express doubts about her character.

In Morocco, violence against women is still widespread and largely a taboo subject.

According to a survey published in February by UN Women, a UN specialized agency for the empowerment of women, 62 percent of men surveyed believe that women must tolerate violence in order to preserve the unity of the family.