Zana Muhsen's story stands as a stark warning to all those who say that it can't happen here. The girls were originally told that they were going to Yemen for an adventure. Aged 15 and 13 respectively, Zana and her sister discovered that they had been literally sold into marriage, and that on their arrival they were virtually prisoners. Sold by Zana Muhsen ( summary and reflection) Brook Evans Psychology 4080 SeptemSummary At the tender ages of just fourteen and fifteen, sisters Nadia and Zana were stripped of their freedom and innocence being sold into arranged marriages by their father. When her father told her she was to spend a holiday with relatives in North Yemen, she jumped at the chance. It seems unbelievable that in this day and age girls can still be sold into unwanted marriages which are little more than slavery. Zana Muhsen, born and bred in Birmingham, is of Yemeni origin. Nadia, her spirit broken by the harsh treatment of her family and unable to take her children with her, has remained in Yemen despite continued campaigning and it seems unlikely that anything can be done to rescue her the legal position is confused and diplomats are reluctant to commit themselves. Meanwhile, their mother, Miriam, began a furious campaign for their return but once again their dual nationality meant that the Yemeni government need not send them back and it took many years of diplomatic haggling before Zana was permitted to leave, and then only after surrendering her child to her husband's family. Raped by their husbands and regularly beaten, the sisters endured daily hardships, and the ordeal of childbirth without proper medical care. Nevertheless, when he proposed a holiday for Zana and Nadia to his native Yemen, they could not have expected to find, on their arrival, that he had married them off without their consent, to boys they had never met, and was now abandoning them to life in a village as far removed from life in Birmingham as could be imagined. Her father had already sent an older brother and sister to his family in Aden as small children, and their dual nationality had meant that they could not be returned to England. By her own account, Zana Muhsen's was a troubled family.

Sold by zana muhsen