'File 8/8 Agency Administration Report 1922-1930' [‎43r] (90/474)

24
25
twenty-four days and the other one
Had we had a proper place to keep
should have insisted that she came
g side issue which became a main
ier was in connexion with five so-
n girls rescued from slavery by the
>f Bahrein.
r Daly was travelling down from
B.I. he heard about five Armenian
sen sold at Kuweit, were married
i taken to Qutar. He had been
icrease in this traffic along the coast
and, and decided it was time to
> he sent to the Sheikh of Qutar to
girls released and sent to Bahrein,
isbands had to give them up and
Bahrein, where they were sent to
9 of the rich pearl merchants of this
•other had been involved in their
>r to Qutar. Here they were placed
)jlis and locked up. A few days later
ent sent for them in order that he
leir story, but nothing could be
of them except the story they had
instructed to tell by their late
masters. They were terrified, refused to unveil,
insisting they were Moslems of the Aneza tribe.
The story they told seemed quite impossible ; they
said they had been handed over by their tribe by
Nejdis who had divorced them in Kuweit where
they remarried and were taken to Qutar.
As long as they refused to tell the truth nothing
could be done toward sending them back to their
people. Moreover, they did not seem to want to
be released. It is at this point that the Mission
comes into the story. The Political agent A mid-ranking political representative (equivalent to a Consul) from the diplomatic corps of the Government of India or one of its subordinate provincial governments, in charge of a Political Agency. told Dr.
Dame about it and asked his help. Dr. Dame
offered the women’s side of the hospital as a place
for them to stay, and suggested that the Mission
ladies try by friendship to win their confidence
gradually and thus get their story from them.
When they first came to us they were terrified.
Being in the hands of the ‘ Hakuma ’ held terrors for
them such as they had never experienced in then-
hardy desert life, and being handed over from one
seat of judgement to another did not make matters
more cheerful. They regarded every one who
questioned them in any way in the light of an
enemy. We made very little headway at first.
They insisted their story was true and kept repeat
ing it. The older ones would say, ‘ I want no food