She brings me "a cuppa", and we sit in her living room on velvet floor cushions. She wears a red, peasant-style dress and leggings, her eyes are kohl-rimmed and her feet and hands are covered in intricate henna designs: she's a beautiful woman. Her Brummie accent is still intact although her English is often rusty. Without any greeting, she demands: "Why is she doing this? Why does she tell these lies? I say, 'I'm OK, I'm happy here in Yemen.' Why won't they believe me? Why won't she stop?" Nadia has agreed to speak to me because she has heard about Zana's second book. The ground floor, as yet unfinished, will be Mohammed's grocery shop. Two years ago, with their savings and the help of Mohammed's family, they bought a new two-storey flat on the city's sleepy outskirts. Nadia, her husband Mohammed and their six children moved here from their village in 1996. The chaotic streets are full of vendors selling fish, oranges, pawpaws, dates, almonds and the ubiquitous qat. Taiz is a ragged, dusty city with a population of 322,000. Neither of them has seen Nadia since 1992 and they have not spoken to her since 1996, but they insist that she is abused by her husband's family, that she limps and is badly scarred, that she is brainwashed and has "blank, staring eyes". Miriam Ali also wrote her own heartbreaking version of events, Without Mercy. Last year, she continued the saga in A Promise to Nadia - the true story of a British slave. On her return, Zana wrote bitterly of her ordeal in the book Sold, which became an international bestseller. ![]() When the day came, Zana got on the plane - but Nadia vanished back into the mountains. By now, Zana had one child and Nadia two. But there was a catch: they couldn't take their children. ![]() Six months later, in April 1988, bureaucratic wheels turned and Nadia and Zana were given permission by Yemen to return to the UK. The resulting articles, portraying Nadia and Zana as slaves in a cruel and primitive culture, provoked a public outcry in Britain and humiliated the government of Yemen. In 1987, a journalist from the Observer visited the girls in their remote villages. But, of course, it was only the beginning.
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