BRUTAL TREATMENT.

Manawatu Standard, Volume XLVI, Issue 23, 26 December 1925, Page 7

BRUTAL TREATMENT.

CHRISTIAN GIRLS IN SYRIA. SHOCKING DISCLOSURES. LONDON, Dec. 23. Rev. S. W. Cackett, secretary of the Bible Lands Mission Society, who has just returned from Syria, makes shocking disclosures of the treatment of Armenian and other Christian girls by Turkey. The mission is now buying girls for £1 a head to save them from the horrors of the harems, where girls are taken when they are fourteen years and younger. The children are farmed out to Arabs and Kurds, who keep them until they are fourteen and then sell them to harem-keepers. Meanwhile, girls of from eight to ten years are forced to drive the beasts of Arabs and Kurds to water and do other work for nomadic peoples. They are helpless captives, not knowing whether their parents are dead or alive. In many cases, the children are branded on the back or neck, so that they can be traced and returned to their masters if they try to escape. This report confirms Mrs MacKinnon’s allegations previously cabled. The missionaries find that purchase is the only way of helping the girls. The League of Nations estimates that the victims number at least 30,000, but the recent trouble in the Mosul district has largely added to the number.—A. aud N.Z. cable.