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One former member of a kidnapping gang that targeted Coptic girls spoke about how these
abductions are meticulously orchestrated. He said: “They weave a spider’s web around [the girls].”
”
18-year-old girls who went missing recently, Injy Rizk Farouq from MenouÀa (June 2021) and Marina Reda Zachari from Giza (July 2021), were both eventually returned to their parents. 42 No details were released about their abductions, and it has been speculated that families agree to keep quiet as part of the price they pay for their return. Many others are still missing, like Hanan Isaac Wanees Ghabrial, a married mother of two from Shubra Al-Khaymah ― even though her family was able to name the suspects they believed were holding her. 43 For numerous Coptic Christian women the hell of being abducted and abused remains an ongoing reality.
Such crimes violate UN conventions and protocol for human trafÀcking ― indeed the forced disappearance of girls under 18 years of age also contravenes the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. 40 One former member of a kidnapping gang that targeted Coptic girls spoke about how these abductions are meticulously orchestrated. He said: “They weave a spider’s web around [the girls].” Most of them are passed to SalaÀst groups who force them to convert. “And once they reach the legal age, a specially arranged Islamic representative comes in to make the conversion ofÀcial.” The former gang member also stated that kidnappers are paid handsomely by these groups, and that police ofÀcers have conspired to report these young women as missing rather than abducted. 41
The problem is compounded by under-reporting in the media, partly because of the wall of silence that often descends when young women are returned. Two
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