(Oct. 4, 2010) Khartoum, Sudan – Amira* is the attractive 16-year-old daughter of an Iraqi mother and Sudanese father. She spent the first ten years of her life in Iraq, where her family lived in an apartment in a multi-story house in Baghdad, just around the corner from her grandmother. Amira remembers a happy life, full of “friends, going to school, nice shops, and good weather.” But, when the United States invaded in 2003, her stepfather, believing the family would be safer in Sudan, moved them to Hasahisa, a town two hours from Khartoum.
They settled into a one-room home, and Amira soon met her biological father, Adam. “I was expecting him to be warm and greet me. But he was cold,” Amira recalls. The second time Adam came to visit, he told Amira he was giving her 50 Sudanese pounds (about $20). As he left, however, he handed an envelope to her stepfather instead. Inside was the money—along with a certificate stating that Amira, age 11, was married. Read the rest of the article as it appeared . . .
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