Nabila Sharma is a Muslim woman who was sexually assaulted by her Imam as a child. She tells her story in, My Imam abused me nearly every day for four years at the local mosque.
I WAS abused almost every day between the ages of seven and 11.
My abuser was the leader of my mosque, the Imam.
One day, he asked me to come to his room, as he lived at the mosque.
I found this strange, but he said I could read to him and get ahead with my prayers before the others arrived.
Inside his room, he began touching my face and stroking my hair, telling me what a pretty little girl I was.
I was only seven, I didn’t understand what he was doing other than I knew I didn’t like it. It made me uncomfortable.
He began singling me out for little jobs. People thought I was teacher’s pet but he was actually isolating me from everyone else.
Sharma's tale is not that different from the young baptist girls I write about here. Her Imam singled her out, treated her special and was able to molest with impunity because he was protected by his position in the community and at the Mosque. Clergy sexual abuse is not limited to Christian sects.
