A God Who Hates by Wafa Sultan Page A

the village I faced challenges of another kind. Its primitive rural society did not acknowledge that a woman was capable of being a doctor. In our first year there, I managed, through patience and persistence, to win the trust of the villagers, and of the women in particular. At night our house turned into an emergency room. I would be awakened in the middle of the night by knocking at the door and the sound of a voice calling out, “Please, Dr. Mo-rad, open the door, we need Wafa.” My husband is not a doctor but the villagers called him “doctor” nonetheless, while addressing me by my first name.
    Because they trusted me, I penetrated further into their homes than even the rays of the sun did, and experienced firsthand all the secrets that lay behind their locked doors. What I found there appalled me and made me want to protest; but my voice was stifled by my fear for our own lives, which prevented me from speaking out against the injustices I witnessed.
    The month of Ramadan, during which Muslims neither eat nor drink from sunrise to sunset, was one of the hardest months of the year for me. Many more patients flocked for treatment at the medical center where I worked than the number we usually saw. The number who collapsed from exhaustion and dehydration soared startlingly during the day, as did the number of those who suffered from indigestion and vomiting at night, as they stuffed themselves with food in an attempt to compensate for their daytime fast. Both men and women worked in the fields from early morning, performing arduous and exhausting agricultural labor, which, especially when the weather was hot, necessitated large quantities of water that the fast did not allow them to drink. Spurred on by my feelings of pity for them, I tried to persuade them—the women, especially—not to fast, then withdrew my suggestion when it was met with disdainful glances.
    It goes without saying that the men treated their women inhumanely and, in this rural society, they were even more pitifully exploited. Many of them gave birth in the open fields, and I would sometimes be called out to help a woman whose labor pains had come upon her as she tilled the ground. My anger rose as I stood helpless, not knowing what to do in the face of such injustice. Sometimes I would exert my authority as a doctor and scream at the men, “Don’t you feel guilty at all?,” but they would usually just laugh and refuse to take my question seriously.
    The exploitation of women as a workforce was not, however, my main concern. I was much more worried by the sexual abuse they suffered. Because I was a woman, I got to know about a great many cases that a male doctor would never have learned of. Although sexual assault was widespread in the area, it was well protected from the view of others. By showing my sympathy for the women I was able to win their confidence, and they told me secrets of a kind they usually took to the grave. Many had been raped and most of these rape victims had fallen prey to male members of their own family, usually their own fathers. Unmarried women who became pregnant as a result of these rapes were murdered as soon as their condition was discovered to wash away the disgrace and keep the scandal hidden. In some cases the murderer was the rapist himself. Some victims were deliberately poisoned with the pesticides that were used to spray the apple trees in that region famous for its apple production. The death certificate would read: “Death from natural causes.” No doctor was required to obtain a death certificate for these women. Witnesses were sufficient.
    By the time I had completed my period of service in the village my heart had bled and I was seething with fury. I returned to Lattakia three years later a more experienced woman, well schooled in the human rights abuses that took place in the society in which I lived.

7.

First Step to Freedom
     
    AT THE END of the 1980s the world accused Syria of supporting world