We would have liked to save you, Saman

No cultural relativism can justify the acceptance of religions or cultures in which women are subjected to men by law, in an odd citizenship. Feminism must be unequivocal on this point.
Please be aware that the translation of contents, although automatic, has a cost to Feminist Post but is provided to you without any charge. Please consider making a contribution via the "Support us" page if you intend to use our translation service intensively.
The contents of this site are translated using automatic translation systems without the intervention of professional translators.
Translations are provided for the sole purpose of facilitating reading by international visitors.
Share this article

(in memory of Nadia Riva)

Saman was killed by her family for refusing a forced marriage and for wanting to live as a non-Muslim Italian girl.

It would have been nice if, like Malika, a fundraising campaign had been started for you before you disappeared. Unfortunately, however, your story and your call for help did not reach the right ears and perhaps they would not have even noticed.

It would have been nice if you had been free to run away from home to leave your family behind and choose your own future.

You have to forgive us Saman, every day we see how so many of us are abused, raped, kidnapped, threatened, blackmailed, humiliated, silenced, mistreated, censored and killed and we feel powerless in the face of this selfish and blind society that continues to use our bodies and our names to maintain inequality and to snatch from us women even the last shred of dignity.

They have not even given you time to live as a woman of age and have decided to deprive you of your autonomy as an adult. The only thing we can do now is to tell your story, in our own way, to do you justice.


Saman Abbas, 18 years old, 'disappeared' more than a month ago from Novellara, Reggio Emilia, where she lived with her family. In her last message she warned her boyfriend: 'If you don't hear from me for 48 hours, call the police'. Thanks also to the testimony of her 16-year-old brother, the police have reconstructed what is unfortunately considered to be the definitive version of what happened -the search continues for the girl's body -the parents' flight to Pakistan, the disappearance of Saman's cousins and uncle.

The media talk about the Pakistani origins of Saman and his family. Instead, it hesitates to refer to the Muslim religion, as was also the case with Malika.They preferred to blame the parents' intolerance of their daughter's homosexuality on an all-Italian homophobia, without considering the weight of the family's cultural and religious roots.

After having Opposed to the forced marriage planned by her parents in Pakistan, Saman had already fled in December. and was living in a shelter in Bologna. She returned home on 11 April only to get her documents back. Saman had already complained to the Carabinieri about her parents' pressure and their refusal to give her passport. Despite extreme difficulties, Saman had tried to get to safety.

It was not enough to save her life. Returning home for a couple of weeks, her determination to be free was definitively punished. The brother testifies to the close supervision by his mother all the time to prevent her from leaving again. Of Saman he says that he was "a Muslim who did not behave like one'.

Avremmo voluto salvarti, Saman

Danish Hasnain, Saman's uncle, 33, is accused of killing her. He was known as a violent person who was referred to as ".bring order' in the Pakistani community in the area. Danish Hasnain is now wanted throughout Europe, while two other men, 34-year-old Nomanulhaq and 29-year-old Ikram Ijaz, Saman's cousins, have already been arrested.

A family business, a problem solved with speed and coldness, a feminicide carried out as if it were a normal daily practice, with effective organisation and no second thoughts. A feminicide commissioned by Saman's parents who, according to the brother's testimony, they acted "reluctantly", as if they were "had to be done..

Some accuse "the current laws on citizenship and residence permit to constitute a further difficulty in the already complex paths of escape from the contexts of patriarchal violence". "The written and signed consent of the husband or father is required to obtain citizenship, even in reported cases of gender-based violence".

The Minister of the Interior Lamorgese announces: 'More paths to integration with Islam'. The tone remains conciliatory. But experience shows that hesitating in firm condemnation puts women at risk. Every feminicide happens at the hands of a man in a relationship with the victim, but one cannot accept on the grounds of tolerance a religion that inferiorises women and restricts their freedom.

It is impossible to remain indifferent to the fact that the different laws for men and women. That among us live many women forced to respond to a behavioural code that subjugates them to men, with the indifference of institutions. Sharia cannot be tolerated as a parallel law.

NUDM puts Saman's case on the same level as the 45 other women killed by men in Italy. But one cannot overlook the context in Saman's case. Swould erase the reality that you have experienced.his daily struggle with two parallel worlds, Italian law outside the home and Islamic law inside the home. Nudm mentions Tiziana Dal Pra - Founder of the native and migrant women's association Trama di Terre, which opened the first shelter for girls who refuse forced marriages in Bologna in 2011: "Girls who flee forced marriages want to choose how to live, self-determination, love. Saying that their goal is to follow the 'Western model' does not help to understand reality. The problem is not culture, but the denial of rights.

But in this way we risk losing contact with the reality of the victims of this violence.

As he stated Maryan Ismail in a recent meeting with RadFem Italy, women coming from an 'eastern model' have the law at their disposal, should they want to report. But as we have seen State laws are not a sufficient barrier to the violence of Islamic patriarchy. As if cultural relativism were not enough, NUDM also used Saman's case to sponsor Zan's bill against homobi-transphobia.

Feminism must denounce and condemn any system, religion, belief or custom that subjects women to physical, psychological, economic, institutional and emotional mistreatment and places them in a position of inequality with men.

When law and faith are one and create unbreakable codes, coexistence with the legislation of host countries becomes very problematic, and women's freedom is under threat in many European countries.

To deny the existence of customs and traditions that keep women in a position of subordination, or even to welcome and celebrate them as one does the hijab or other types of clothing that conceal the female body as impure is to deny the existence of customs and traditions that keep women in a position of subordination. contribute to keeping these women in a state of submission.

It is no longer possible to reconcile the freedom of women with systems that consider women as the property of men, not only in the imagination but also by law.

Sara Punzo

Much of the news published by Feminist Post you will not read elsewhere. That is why it is important to support us, even with a small contribution: Feminist Post is produced solely by the voluntary work of many people and has no funding. If you think our work can be useful for your life, we would be grateful for even the smallest contribution.  

Please send to: BLU BRAMANTE CULTURAL ASSOCIATION

OBLIGATORY REASON: FEMINIST POST

IBAN: IT80C0200812914000104838541


Much of the news published by Feminist Post you will not read elsewhere. That is why it is important to support us, even with a small contribution: Feminist Post is produced solely by the voluntary work of many people and has no funding.
If you think our work can be useful for your life, we will be grateful for even the smallest contribution.

You can give us your contribution by clicking here: Patreon - Feminist Post
You might also be interested in
30 November 2023
Born of a surrogate mother
Olivia Maurel, 32, was born to a surrogate mother and today she is fighting on the front line against the practice, which she describes as 'atrocious' and 'monstrous'. She always knew something was wrong with her family. She suffers from depression, has had problems with alcoholism and has attempted suicide several times. Only recently has she discovered the truth about her origins and that she suffered the trauma of abandonment. "To no child," she says, "should what happened to me ever happen again."
Commercial or 'altruistic' surrogacy must be abolished. These are the words of Olivia Maurel, born in December 1991 in Kentucky by traditional surrogacy (i.e. in which the oocyte also belongs to the 'surrogate mother', ed.), who recounted her experience in a conference at the parliament of the Czech Republic. Today, married with two children in Cannes, 'proud to be a feminist' as we read on her X page, she fights against surrogacy. Her testimony, very valuable as there are still very few [...]
Read now
10 November 2023
British academics against cancel culture
On 20 November, the London Universities Council for Academic Freedom will be unveiled, a body that brings together a hundred or so professors from the major British universities with the intention of fighting against the censorship and single-mindedness that in recent years have impeded academic debate and freedom, compromising the education of thousands of students. In the crosshairs especially Lgbtq+ realities such as Stonewall that have heavily influenced university and higher education. About time, and go on!
As reported by The Telegraph, more than a hundred academics from the UK's top universities have joined forces to tackle the growing threat of cancel culture through the creation of a new body dedicated to academic freedom. In a pioneering initiative, the scholars have formed the 'London Universities Council for Academic Freedom', involving all academic institutions in the capital including University College London (UCL), King's College London, [...]
Read now
8 November 2023
Canada: gender critical nurse risks her job
Amy Hamm works in a psychiatric ward and is under investigation for promoting women's rights based on sex and child protection online. The BCCNM, the body that regulates the nursing profession, intends to suspend her unless she participates in a re-education programme but Amy opposes this: the hearing is underway. US journalist Megyn Kelly interviewed her
Canadian nurse Amy Hamm - one of the founders of the non-profit coalition Canadian Women Sex Based Rights (caWsbar) - works in an acute psychiatric ward specialising in mental health and substance use. Amy risks losing her nursing licence and her job because she allegedly promoted women's sex-based rights and child protection online. In recent years, Amy has been the subject of an investigation by the British Columbia College of Nurses & Midwives [...]
Read now
11 September 2023
Female wombs in male bodies
The envious dream of all time -to be able to have children without women, to erase mothers, in short, the Grail- is getting closer and closer to being realised: in five to ten years' time, even biologically male trans people will be able to receive a womb transplant and conduct a gestation. An 'inclusive' wish-right that would improve their quality of life and alleviate the symptoms of dysphoria. While the lives and health of girls and boys born from these practices are of no concern to bioethicists
Euronews reports on the rapid progress of research on the uterus transplantation front, with particular reference to the request of trans MtF people whose bodies remain biologically male, while FtM people, if they retain their female genital apparatus, can undertake a pregnancy like any other woman: the 'pregnant fathers' that the mainstream press likes to report on are none other than women who self-identify as men. In the article, which we translate here, women are referred to as cis- women, suffixed [...]
Read now
4 August 2023
Lesbian motherhood: open letter to Kathleen Stock
The gender critical philosopher says she is concerned about the rights of lesbian mothers being denied 'by the Meloni government'. But it was the judiciary and not the government that decided that only biological mothers can appear on birth certificates. In order for the law to recognise sexual difference in procreation, it is necessary for homosexual women to break the front with wealthy gay males who resort to surrogacy: homogeny is just ideology
We have been following closely and sisterly the story of Kathleen Stock, gender critical philosopher, author among others of Material Girls: Why Reality Matters for Feminism (Little, Brown Book Group, 2021) and former lecturer at the University of Sussex persecuted by transactivists: we have told her story here. Together with Martina Navratilova and Julie Bindel Stock she recently founded The Lesbian Project with the aim of reaffirming the specificity of lesbian identity. The aim of the project is 'to stop the disappearance of lesbians in the rainbow soup and to give [...]
Read now
3 August 2023
The 'right' to have a slave: Hagar and the womb for rent
For days, the supporters of the GPA have been jubilantly spreading the 'news': even God allows a woman to bear children for others, as the biblical account of Sarah -wife of Abraham unable to conceive- and her servant Hagar who lent her womb shows. So today, too, temporary slaves are being claimed: a real ethical and political short-circuit. And an autogoal. Also because the Genesis account should be read in its entirety
For days on social media, the supporters of the womb for rent, in particular many LGBT+ activists and their supporters, have been reviving the story of the slave girl Hagar and her son Ishmael (Genesis 16 and 21) to support the lawfulness and goodness of their cause. The meaning would be: even God allows a woman to bear a child for others. So: nothing wrong with our claim. In fact, we too are entitled to have female slaves. A logical, political and ethical short-circuit. They do not know [...]
Read now
1 2 3 28