The BBC conducted an investigation in which it revealed a hidden world of sexual abuse and exploitation by men who work as “spiritual healers” or “healing by casting out spells”, which is a common practice in the Arab and Islamic worlds, especially among the poor and uneducated classes. Most of the victims, of course, are women, who are more inclined to believe that some people can solve their problems, treat their diseases, and expel evil spirits from their bodies. This type of religious or spiritual treatment is not something new. It has been practiced by clerics belonging to different religions for thousands of years, east and west. The testimonies collected by the channel, from 85 women, over a period of more than a year, showed the naming of 65 therapists in Morocco and Sudan, where these practices are widespread.

The women tell various stories of abuse. One of them says that she was depressed, so she visited a spiritual healer in a town near the house, when she was in her midtwenties, and that the healer told her that the depression was caused by the “jinn” that possessed her. And he asked her, while they were alone, to smell the musk, but it was a kind of anesthetic that made her lose consciousness, and he assaulted her while she was a “girl.”

The therapist told her that what he had done was the only way to get the jinn out of her. And she discovered after a few weeks that she was pregnant, so she had a complete breakdown and thought of suicide, and when “I told the raqi or the therapist about the pregnancy, he replied that the jinn made her pregnant.” The channel said that many of the women it spoke to were afraid that they would be blamed if they reported their mistreatment, and therefore few reported what had happened to their families, let alone the police. Some of them also said that reporting what happened might push the jinn to take revenge on them.

In Sudan, a woman told us that her husband left her to live with a second wife, and she found herself at a loss, and asked for help from a therapist, and she thought he would give her treatment, but he surprised her by asking to have sex with her, and to use “body fluids” to make a potion that she would feed to her husband so that he would return to her! He asked her to keep the secret, but she refused the idea and left.

As it turned out, from talking with 50 Sudanese women about their experiences, they were subjected to abuse at the hands of a well-known cleric, whose name and photo were mentioned in the investigation, and due to the lack of evidence of their words, an employee of the channel pretended that she needed treatment, and the therapist told her that he would pray for her and he prepared for her a bottle of “healing water,” known as “Al-Mahya,” so that she could take it home and drink from it.

Then he approached her and put his hand on her stomach, so she scolded him and ran away in terror. When confronted with the clergyman, he immediately ended the interview. Women in our societies are widely exposed to injustice, and need more than others to be intensively educated about these dangers, because school curricula lack this kind of awareness, perhaps because of the religious aspect of the issue. What exists in Morocco, Sudan, Egypt, and others, is similar, albeit in a less widespread way. I have heard many stories of exploitation, and some have been subjected to injuries and disabilities, and sometimes to death at the hands of these healers, and the stories of some of them are known, and they were circulated in the courts.

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By Ahmad alsarraf