1058: Nina Aouilk | Ending Forced Marriage and Honor Killings Part Two

1058: Nina Aouilk | Ending Forced Marriage and Honor Killings Part Two

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[00:00:00] Jordan Harbinger: Special thanks to Brooks running shoes for sponsoring this episode of the Jordan Harbinger Show. Coming up next on the Jordan Harbinger Show...

[00:00:07] Nina Aouilk: I was numb to everything. All I was watching was blood dripping off my nose into the carpet, and then I heard my other brother, it was like a muffled voice, and he said, not here.

We're taking her to India. We'll kill her. That it's too risky here.

[00:00:25] Jordan Harbinger: Welcome to the show. I'm Jordan Harbinger. On the Jordan Harbinger Show. We decode the stories, secrets, and skills of the world's most fascinating people and turn their wisdom into practical advice that you can use to impact your own life and those around you. Our mission is to help you become a better informed, more critical thinker through long form conversations with a variety of amazing folks, from spies to CEOs, athletes, authors, thinkers and performers, even the occasional gold smuggler, investigative journalist, rocket scientist, or music mogul.

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Just visit Jordan harbinger.com/start or search for us in your Spotify app to get started. Alright, today, part two, with Nina Oak. This story is absolutely incredible. It's very harrowing. Once again, probably no kids in the car for this kind of crazy tale. If you haven't heard part one, of course you need to go back and listen to that one in order to really get the most out of part two here.

Alright, here we go. Part two, with Nina a look,

it seems so hard for me as a dad to be like, okay, we're cutting this person off. That's such a deep level of cultural programming.

[00:01:39] Nina Aouilk: Mm.

[00:01:39] Jordan Harbinger: That it seems impossible like thinking of. Me and my wife being like, oh, well we're just not gonna really talk to our daughter anymore. 'cause she's no longer, I just can't.

It doesn't, I can't. It's not part of the programming.

[00:01:49] Nina Aouilk: No. I can't myself

[00:01:50] Jordan Harbinger: Imagine. Never seeing, I mean, it's just, it's a ridiculous thought that you would I put

[00:01:53] Nina Aouilk: my daughter to the end design. Yeah. She's in the next

[00:01:55] Jordan Harbinger: room. You can't even do an interview without your daughter. I, and I get it. I get it. It's not in our programming, it's not a normal human programming to do this.

[00:02:02] Nina Aouilk: 'cause Yeah, we don't switch that love on and off.

[00:02:04] Jordan Harbinger: No, it's not possible.

[00:02:05] Nina Aouilk: No,

[00:02:06] Jordan Harbinger: it's not possible. That's what I always wonder. I always wonder. When I hear of brides being sold off, isn't the mom inconsolable for years after this?

[00:02:15] Nina Aouilk: Yeah. I mean, when I gave birth I thought about my mother straight away. I think it's a natural thing that, you know, you think your mother went through this pain.

Mm-hmm. To bring you into the earth. But it doesn't mean that maternal love is in everybody.

[00:02:27] Jordan Harbinger: Yeah. But to deprogram it culturally, it seems impossible.

[00:02:31] Nina Aouilk: Hmm. But

[00:02:31] Jordan Harbinger: apparently it's not. So what's the plan? Just walk home one day or like take the bus and get off at a different stop?

[00:02:38] Nina Aouilk: I didn't really have a plan.

You know, now I have to have a plan for everything maybe. Oh yeah. 'cause I never had to plan back then. But one day I remember just getting up and it was after a very horrific kind of abuse in the morning from my father at four o'clock in the morning where again, my arm completely covered in bites and he was very controlling and very aggressive.

And I thought, I don't want this anymore. I hate who I am. I got to the point where I just didn't wanna be at all. And I knew that if I didn't leave, they would kill me or I would kill myself. I just had enough of life. And I looked at him and it was the first time I'd actually looked at him after he'd raped me.

I looked at him in a way to say that I'm done with you. I'm disgusted. I don't like you, and I'll never see you again. And I never have because I've never seen him again. I've walked away and I went to work as normal That day there was a bit more of a spring in my step 'cause I knew that I was going home.

It was like a child almost returning from school. You know, the school day's nearly over you going home. But as soon as I stepped on that bus, it was almost like I'd set up an alarm bell because somebody had seen me from the community and like it was like wildfire burning. So quickly the message had gone to my parents to say she's on her way.

But the questions also had gone to my parents. Why is she on that bus? Has she left her in-laws? Is she not going back? Why hasn't she had a child? Is she having an affair? Is she seeing somebody at work? She works with a lot of white British people. Have they had an influence on her? How could you not control what was happening?

So all of these things, my parents had this almost ticking bomb. Ticking away, right? And it was just waiting to explode until I stepped in that door. I didn't know what I was walking into, but I knocked on the door excitedly thinking my mom would open and my father's there and I'm thinking, why is he here?

It's, you know, not even that late at the moment, he's not normally back till later on in the evening. The anger on his face was enough to tell me I'd made a huge mistake. And there's no going back. You're there and you freeze and you dunno what to do,

[00:04:30] Jordan Harbinger: what happened at home or at your family's home.

[00:04:34] Nina Aouilk: So this is where life, we have so many events that happen in our life and we, it either makes us or breaks us, I guess.

And I had to be broken down, I guess, to rebuild who I am today. But an honor killing attempt took place is the bottom line. I was dragged into the front room again, the same room in, in which I was raped. My brother was there, who's, I think seven years older than me. My other brother wasn't there. My mother standing with my sister-in-Law, they've got their arms crossed and they look really angry.

A discussion had obviously taken place between them before I'd got there that they were going to perform this honor killing. And my brother started to beat me repetitively in my face till my jaw was broken. And then my father started to punch me and kick me. And I was almost flinging around the room like a little rag doll until I was that little ragdoll on the floor with a broken arm, a broken jaw.

I even had a, a bone in my leg that was protruding from the skin. It hadn't cut through. Oh my gosh. But I, um, started to understand that I was going to die here. You know that feeling. And if anyone's ever felt that I, my heart goes out to them. 'cause I won't, I won't want that upon anyone. But I felt, this is it.

I'm going. And they started to kick me and stamp on me as I'm on the floor. And I'm a very young, small, 21-year-old, as my brother and father are stomping on me. They displace my hip. The pain is excruciating. I can't explain it. But with that, my mother and my sister-in-law, collectively with my brother and dad, are throwing on these heavy insults, which are so heavy.

I don't wanna be here anymore. In the sense of, you should have died at birth. We knew this would happen. Now you're in the gutter. Nobody will want you again. Those words. Mm-hmm. And words are so heavy that you can't let go of them. Often, you know, they play on your mind and I almost felt like I should be killed, you know?

I felt like this is what I deserve. And then my father held his foot across my throat. I thought he'd snapped my throat. I swear his weight was so heavy. But I remember drifting in and out of consciousness, and I almost saw myself from the outside in, which is a really important part of my story, because I saw myself in this little form of just bones.

Like I was dying, like I had died. But something was telling me not yet, whether it was my own voice, whether it was my subconscious, whether it was something else, I don't know. All I know is that when I went back into my body, I felt nothing. I didn't feel the punches or the kicks or even the voices.

They'd all almost, I was numb to everything. All I was watching was blood dripping off my nose into the carpet. And then I heard my other brother, it was like a muffled voice. And he said, not here. We're taking her to India. We'll kill her there. It's too risky here. Mm-Hmm. And everyone, I remember seeing everyone's feet like walking away and suddenly the room's very dark and the room stayed dark for days.

I don't know which day I came to. I just know that I lay in a almost a bath of my own blood. I soiled myself. I couldn't move. I was so stiff. 'cause when you stay in the same position too long, you're stiff. And I remember the door opening very gently and a voice coming from my mother's friend who I, I called auntie again saying They're taking you to India on Sunday and you need to get to security at the gates and ask for help.

And I thought, I'm not gonna do that because I'm going to have two people with me. Angry people. I haven't got the guts, I haven't got the courage. I'm just gonna die. I don't wanna live anymore. Mm-Hmm. I can't be bothered with this. And I had this conversation and I still do it, you know, have these conversations in my own head, and a lot of people probably listening do as well, where you have this almost two and fro conversation of shall I?

Shall I not? Shall I get it? Shall I not? Shall I buy this today? Or maybe I shouldn't, I can't afford it. You know, you have these conversations. It was a conversation about whether I wanted to live or not.

[00:08:22] Jordan Harbinger: Yeah, it's unbelievably casual. From the sound of it.

[00:08:26] Nina Aouilk: I was very weirdly calm because I think I just got to a point where I was almost accepting of what was coming.

There was no panic. Not at all. No panic. And I always say to people now when I coach them that if you are in your calmest state, you'll perform your best. Mm-Hmm. It's that panic that makes you not think that you can do it. It makes that panic that makes you mess up. So you've gotta stay as calm as possible and it's not an easy thing to do.

No. But you can get to that state of mind. And I started to move, but moving was hard. I literally, if anyone saw me at that point, I looked like something of a horror film and I got onto my hands and knees and I fell because my arm was broken. I thought, how can I do this? How can I get from here to the door?

From the door to the kitchen? From the kitchen to the outside? And how can I escape? Yeah. I thought, I'm gonna do it with

[00:09:12] Jordan Harbinger: a dislocated hip, no less.

[00:09:13] Nina Aouilk: Yeah. It was displaced. It was, yeah. I dunno what the difference is between displaced and dislocating. I don't, I never heard that. I remember them saying it was displaced, so they had to have me in a whatever in hospital.

I managed to get to the door, then I couldn't reach the handle. And it's that wanting to give up moment, you know, I can't be bothered. I can't do this. But I did it. You know, I got all the way from that floor to the kitchen, to the garden, and that's where it was the toughest part of my journey that I had to get over this huge fence my father had built.

And my dog came, she sat next to me. And you know, my dog, I've said it before, but she was the loudest person. The house most dogs are, they're always barking when they shouldn't be. You try and make them not bark, and they bark even louder. She came, she looked at me straight in the face and I said to her, please don't, and you know, tears are streaming by this point.

I'm trying not to make noise. I know that if everyone hears me, they'll kill me there. And then my father had always threatened to kill me and bury me under the floorboards. He'd always said that, and I believed he would at that point, especially. But she stayed quiet and I didn't know why, you know? And she looked up and she looked at me and I remember feeling like she was there for a message to say, come on, you've got this.

And it's that one person that can almost change your whole. Dynamic of what you think of yourself or your life even. Yeah. And I remember touching a wet nose and I told her I loved her. She was literally my only friend. I didn't even wanna leave because of her, but I couldn't take her with me. I did it. I got over the other side and I remember falling, hiding in a park opposite the house.

It was a park that had bushes. I dunno how my father missed me there, but he didn't see me, thankfully. Mm-Hmm. And the next morning I got to a taxi rank and it was early hours of the morning and the taxi driver covered me with a blanket. He said, where do you wanna go? Love. He must

[00:10:59] Jordan Harbinger: have been alarmed. I mean, you didn't look normal.

He was very

[00:11:02] Nina Aouilk: shocked.

[00:11:03] Jordan Harbinger: Yeah.

[00:11:04] Nina Aouilk: He would do anything for me. It was that kind of conversation we were having. He was offering to take me to the hospital, the police. I just wanted to go to see my friend because that's who I thought was going to help me.

[00:11:14] Jordan Harbinger: So he took you to your friend's house?

[00:11:17] Nina Aouilk: He did, but it was so early in the morning that.

Nobody was awake. You know, the world was asleep, as I call it. Probably my favorite time in the morning, 5:00 AM you know, everyone's quiet and you can think, but the police station was opposite the road, and he carried me into the police station practically. Wow. He was such a good person that I, I always say that I believe in angels, that they cross our paths in the form of people when we most need them.

And he definitely was there. I remember the policeman telling him he can go. I was sort of slumped on a chair by this. I couldn't carry my own weight. I think the adrenaline had kicked in and got me to where I'd got to, but now I completely wasn't able to do it. And the police officer started to write down a report, took photos of me, which I'm still trying to track down.

And then when I said the word honor killing, when he asked what happened, Mm-Hmm. He threw this file down and he was fed up. It was almost like a oh with it, you know? Now I know if I said murder or attempted murder, things would've been different, but. You call it what it is in my culture, it's called an honor killing.

So I called it what it was, and because of that, he didn't want to know

[00:12:21] Jordan Harbinger: really, because he just felt like I can't do anything about this. More

[00:12:24] Nina Aouilk: paperwork above his pay grade. These are the words I hear now, working with the police, that's obscene

[00:12:29] Jordan Harbinger: really. You would think a cop would be chomping at the bit to get into the middle of this and stop it from now.

Yeah. I

[00:12:34] Nina Aouilk: remember his name. His name was PCP, and he looked like a character of a cartoon, you know, like one of those cartoon characters. But regardless of what he looked like or what his name was, he didn't help me.

[00:12:43] Jordan Harbinger: Unbelievable.

[00:12:44] Nina Aouilk: And you ask for help and you don't get it. You don't ask again. Your confidence is broken.

Everybody else's words become true. Please don't help our kind of people. And I ended up in hospital for two months, which was really difficult for me. And I say two months. But you know what, George, and I can't remember how long I was there. It's a long time ago. So don't hold me to fact, I can't get hold of the records yet.

Well, if it was the United States, you'd

[00:13:07] Jordan Harbinger: still be paying that bill. But

[00:13:08] Nina Aouilk: then I'd have a record. Yeah,

[00:13:09] Jordan Harbinger: yeah, you'd have a record.

[00:13:10] Nina Aouilk: But they weren't digitalized. It was paperwork. So my, my son who's now a doctor said, you might not be able to get it. But I'm trying and I'll continue trying, but I was there for such a long time.

I remember people coming into bed one bed two, bed three. We were like on a ward of seven or eight beds. And I remember Johnny at the end was going to get a visit from his granddad at this time. And his granddad always bought him a pack of coffee, or the girl lady opposite would get flowers from her husband every other day.

And I learned how to treat other people by watching. I'm not going to lie, I knew that if anybody I loved went to hospital Mm-hmm. I would be able to provide the right things for them. A magazine bottle of ade grapes. But I learned through that because nobody was coming for me, right. And every time that visiting hour would come, 'cause I'd watch the clock, I knew that round the corner, there was one person that was gonna even say hello to me.

And you know, people have lost compassion because not one of those visitors ever turned around to me and said, how are you? Yeah, I looked like a young girl who'd been through a huge ordeal. But not one person had stopped to say, you know, how are you today? Not once. And that's happened more than once in my life.

Which is why I say to people that we need to be more loving and compassionate. Give five minutes of your time to be kind. It makes a huge difference to someone's lives. I, um, was released from hospital. Eventually the nurses didn't care, you know, the nurses would come, the doctors would come, and there was that sticky note on my file saying, attempted on.

And they would also be oh, sort of thing. And surprisingly, you know, some of the nurses were from the South Asian culture, like my own, but they didn't question it. Maybe they didn't want to or they thought I deserved it because a lot of people from my culture believe I deserved what I got because I went against the grains.

So she brought it upon herself, so to speak. But I left hospital and ended up in a women's refuge where there were so many women fighting their own battles. And I didn't know about alcohol abuse or drug abuse. So it was quite shocking for me, but scary to see women behaving this way. I asked to leave and I said, can I go and live with my friends?

And the lady was a warden said, here's some money we can give you. You can make way. Wow. Also not a safeguarding thing if you look back on it now, there was no safeguarding put in place. Yes, I'm an adult. Yes, I'm 21, 22. But still, you know, there was no, are you going to be okay with a whole life of abuse that maybe should have been more care taken?

[00:15:29] Jordan Harbinger: They almost didn't even understand that. You didn't know how to function. No. In the world they just kind of assumed, oh, she's ready to make a go of it. Not thinking she's got the life experience of a small child in, in terms of

[00:15:41] Nina Aouilk: freedom, I was very child freedom still I'm sometimes

[00:15:43] Jordan Harbinger: that's unbelievable and wow.

So how did you start to make a normal life for yourself after leaving the shelter?

[00:15:50] Nina Aouilk: Well, I went back to my friends, you know, thinking my friend will be there, expecting her to open the door and I managed to find the place. 'cause you know, we didn't have phones back then to navigate ourselves to place. We had to use memory.

And I got back to the place Market Harbor in Leicestershire and I knocked on the door and her boyfriend opened and I was a little bit, oh God, it's him. And he said, oh no, you know what? Me and her split up, but I've got two bedrooms. You can definitely rent one from me. And I thought, well, what a kind guy saying, I can rent a room.

I. Thank you. And I was very courteous and grateful and I said, my arms in a sling. And he said, well, you can get a job when you can owe me. Mm-Hmm. So I did, I, I got a huge job in a local council, which I'm not sure what you call that, but it's a local council. Government Council. Government office. Office, yeah.

Okay. It was a really easy job. I enjoyed it. The people didn't ask me any questions and I was always fearful that my parents would find me. 'cause I knew they were looking, but ah, it was a small, white British town, so I thought, they're not probably going to come here and look for me. Yeah. I just got on with life and that was how life was for me.

[00:16:53] Jordan Harbinger: Your parents were looking for you to what? To finish the job, essentially? Yeah, because Oh geez. They

[00:16:57] Nina Aouilk: were, look for you, whoever you are, they will find you if you move to city, to city, and a lot of our culture and community play a big part in this. The women going shopping might see somebody who's left home and then make that call or go and visit the person.

Say, well, I saw your daughter, she was in this place. If you wanna find her, she's in this area. Oh. So the community play a large role in finding missing persons, per se. Who have run away? Escaped. Escaped. Yeah.

[00:17:20] Jordan Harbinger: Wow. It's like a snitchy. You hear about like East Germany or the Soviet Union. They have the secret police.

Your neighbors are informed. It's kind of, it literally is like that set up

[00:17:30] Nina Aouilk: literally. Yeah. Yeah. Life was good because it was a couple of months in and I was starting to find my feet. I didn't really know my purpose in life or Mm-Hmm. When you have no belonging, you dunno where you belong. You yearn for the things you had.

It's a natural thing. I was yearning for my old gray room, you know, I wanted it back because that's all I knew, but I had no option to go back. This time I understood there was no way of going. My landlord as he was as then, you know, my friend said, do you want to go to a party? I'm going to a party. It's the landlord.

'cause he'd sublet to me. He said, oh, I'm going to go to a party. Come with me. So I said to my friend, sure, what do I take? Do I need to buy a present? Do I do this? Do I, I didn't know what to do. He said no. But I remember the flowers in the hospital. I took flowers. Mm-Hmm. It was a male birthday, but he didn't seem to mind.

I bought flowers. There were a lot of partying going on there. I guess I've never been to one before, but. My friend, who I rented from was handing me coke every two minutes. I didn't really drink CocaCola. I'd never really had it because I only drank water if that. So I said, oh, the Coke tastes a bit strange.

He said, it's Pepsi. Have you drank fizzy drinks before? I said, not really. And he said, that's why. Mm-Hmm. And if someone tells me something, I believe them. If you, Jordan says You're too close to the micro friend, I'd be, oh, okay. I am too close. Jordan must know better. That was the case. And I drank three or four of these cups of Coke, and I felt very woozy.

And I said, don't feel too good. He said, I'll take you back. And I don't remember anything after that. Oh no. But the next morning I'm in my bed naked and I'm thinking, what's happened? But who might ask him? How can I question somebody? It must be something I've done. Mm-Hmm. And I did kind of push it a little bit, but I got very shut down in conversations.

So I left it until. I realize I'm pregnant. God, you know, I know these feelings, I know this nausea. And I say to him, I'm pregnant. He says, I want you to abort the baby. And I thought, I don't wanna go back there. I don't wanna do that thinking it's the same clinic I have to go to. I even thought somebody might recognize me at the clinic.

'cause I was that naive. I was miles away from that place and I said, I'm going to have this baby because suddenly something feels right for me. Mm-hmm. For whatever reason, selfishness not wanting to be alone. And I have the most beautiful baby girl and I celebrate this girl. I remember having a party and making little sausage rolls and doing all of the things you see hung on the tv.

'cause I was watching TV now 'cause I'd never watched television before in my life. But now I'm watching television and being quite influenced by Mm-Hmm. I have to say. Mm-Hmm. And I do a little part. I invite the landlord and the landlady and I invite some other friends of theirs. Don't really have any friends of my own, but we have this little get together and everyone looks really happy.

We've got beautiful cake. It's not even her birthday. Mm-Hmm. But I was celebrating her being alive, that she had broken this circle of abuse almost. I was celebrating the daughter in defiance. I was saying, look at me, I've got a baby girl and I'm proud. Mm-hmm. And then my father found out, oh no. And I dunno how he found out or who saw me, because it was quite a sleepy town where I lived.

But they came dressed in wigs, blonde wigs, and disguised as different people.

[00:20:21] Jordan Harbinger: This is ridiculous.

[00:20:21] Nina Aouilk: They came to the landlord who owned a news's shop, a little supermarket type thing where they sell newspapers and things and he says, here's 5,000 pounds. I'm looking for this girl. She lives near here. And they say, we dunno who she is and we dunno where she is.

We don't want the money either. He says, well, if you find out, ring me on this number.

[00:20:42] Jordan Harbinger: This is the Jordan Harbinger Show with our guest, Nina lk. We'll be right back. This episode is also sponsored by Silver Linings Playbook. You know those conversations where you're just hanging out, genuinely curious, and you end up learning way more than you expected? That is exactly what the Silver Linings Playbook podcast feels like.

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So come on and join us. You'll be in smart company where you belong. You can find the course@sixminutenetworking.com. Now back to Nina Luke. Nobody thought it was weird. A Sikh Indian man wearing a blonde wig was asking for a little girl. They must, it sounds like. That rang at least one alarm bell. It did because it's so weird.

[00:23:22] Nina Aouilk: Well, the land landlady was really good. She didn't obviously give up where I was and she could have, because 5,000 pounds, that's a lot of money in 1993 was still a lot of money in there. Yeah. She didn't tell them, but she told me not to come out. So I would sit with my back to the front door closing the letterbox and nobody could put anything through the letterbox as well.

So scared. Playing with my daughter. I'm playing with my daughter in the front room. I'm playing with my daughter in my bedroom because I dunno where to take her. There's no real relationship between me and her father, but we are living cohabiting. Sure. Okay. They say, you know what, move upstairs, because it's a bit safer there.

No one can come there unless they climb the stairs and you'll know they're coming. So I listened to them because I think they're helping me. And they were to a degree, but they wanted more rent as well. So I moved upstairs into this bigger place. It's got three bedrooms now. My daughter's six, seven months old, and she's walking around a little baby walker.

And I keep going up and down the stairs to the news agent, some company and a guy walks in and says, oh, easy money. And I'm thinking, what's easy money? I wanna know. 'cause I wanna give my daughter everything I never had. And it turns out he's selling mobile phones. He says to me, no, almost calls me a little girl, tells me to go.

And I run down to the end of the road where we have these large phone boxes, like little toy, the mm-Hmm,

[00:24:34] Jordan Harbinger: the little red, the red phone booth that everybody knows about.

[00:24:37] Nina Aouilk: Yeah. And the doors are so heavy. I'm p pri it open with my daughter's push chair and I'm calling a number that we can get addresses from.

There wasn't hardly anyone selling mobile phones at this time. In 1993 and they give me the address. I write down this contract, there's no typewriters, no computers, and I send it out to him. Then there's another company, I think it might be them too, send it to them too. And within, I think two or three days, he came back and he knocked on the door and he said, I've got your contract.

And he's laughing at me almost. But he's all, again, if you don't ask, you don't get. And I became a very successful mobile phone distributor to the point where I didn't even need him. The people that were providers, the airtime providers came direct to me and said, we want you to have your own shop. Mm-Hmm.

Find a place and we'll help you for the first year. Wow. And I did. And my entrepreneurial journey just was on a different tangent. You know, I was doing so well. Maybe because I'd learned this from my father. I don't know. Maybe I'd seen things, I don't know. It's in

[00:25:32] Jordan Harbinger: your blood.

[00:25:32] Nina Aouilk: It's in my blood, yeah. And I can't deny him of that, but,

[00:25:34] Jordan Harbinger: well, he didn't.

[00:25:35] Nina Aouilk: I wanted to give my daughter everything that I didn't have myself. My mom had taught me how not to be a mom, so I gave her that over love. You know, anything I would give to her. And then my partner's interested because I'm making a lot of money now. Sure. So he doesn't wanna leave. He is not leaving, but he is doing his own thing, going out all the time.

Not really inclusive of me, and that's normal again. But my father did that. So why would I question it? I didn't have a normal relationship with anyone up to this point. I've never dated, I don't what dating is. And we have another little boy. We've moved into our own house. We've got a beautiful house, white picket fence.

It's exactly the way I used to draw it. Mm-Hmm. Literally things are okay between us, but he's angry a lot. But I'm used to anger. Remember my mom was always angry. Mm. I don't know why he's angry, but he is. And he starts to demand money. So to be in my life, I needed to give him anything between 5,000, 8,000 pounds a month.

He doesn't work. He has nothing to do with the children. Never turns up to a parent's evening. Nativity plays sports day. He's not there. Everyone thinks I'm a single mother, but everyone thinks the business belongs to him that we're running. Oh, I see. Because it's that thing, you know, that whole, how people see him.

He's driving nice cars because I'm providing, I don't even see that it's me providing, I still think it's Anu thing 'cause I don't believe in myself so much. Mm-Hmm. And then I'm pregnant for the third time and he said to me, I don't want anything to do with you after this because I don't even want children with you.

You just keep having them. And I'm like, well, I'm one of three. I wanna be one of three. You know, you've got this weird mentality thing. And I get pregnant and the pushing had started, you know, the pushing my head into the door as we're driving. Mm. The pushing me down the stairs, the pushing me in the, against the kitchen door.

He'd set my pillow on fire as I was pregnant. What? And yeah, while you're sleeping, I assume While I'm sleeping my door, God saw it in the bath and she's asking me questions and I don't even know how I put the fire out. I'm not even sure, you know, going back, I think

[00:27:29] Jordan Harbinger: that would be, that's terrifying to wake up to something like that.

Like that I, I remember

[00:27:33] Nina Aouilk: my hair being on fire. Of course. It's a real distinctive smell of flesh burning in her hair burning. And going back to the bride burning thing, I've got this fear of fire. I'm thinking he's gonna set me on fire and I'm gonna just burn like those girls did. So I'm over pleasing now.

What can I do? What do you need? How can I help you? But I'm pregnant. And third, pregnancy is not easy because you're tired, you're doing more than you did for the first one. You've got two other kids to look after. Plus, I'm running several businesses by this point. I'm a millionaire. I'm a self-made millionaire.

But I don't have the luxury of even being a millionaire because in the kitchen we have a shelf for him and we have a shelf For me and the children, my money was controlled so that I couldn't buy the children, the same food as him, and I wouldn't eat properly because it meant the children would have enough food.

So I would let them eat, not myself. In the pantry, as we call it, the under stairs cupboard, there was biscuits and he would always want the mo viti chocolate biscuits. And sometimes my youngest son, he would go and eat them. This is going forward now. And I would scold him and say, don't do that. You'll get me in trouble.

And no doubt, I used to get pulled into the kitchen and beaten because of that. It was that minor. You know, those little things. In the third pregnancy, I am really tired. It's quite soon after my son was born, I'm coming down the stairs and he is saying to me, I need the money. I need the money. I'm going to Italy.

He was constantly traveling and living this lavish mm-hmm, almost Playboy lifestyle se now. But at the time I thought he was traveling for work. Sure. Looking for more ideas that never came to fruition. And he pushes me and I fall flat on my stomach and he leaves. My daughter was at a sleepover and I can almost feel a foot coming out of me

[00:29:11] Jordan Harbinger: a foot, like a baby foot, a

[00:29:13] Nina Aouilk: baby's foot.

And um, I ring the people that we used to live with, you know, the landlady, and said, I need help. She comes and takes my son and I'm cut. Long story short, in the hospital giving birth to my third child, you know, the labor's like a normal labor. He's breech, so they're saying he's breached. So we need to just put a bit more caution and care.

[00:29:36] Jordan Harbinger: This is a baby position for people who've never heard of Breach Baby. It's. Has to do with the position of the baby in the uterus.

[00:29:43] Nina Aouilk: So his feet are coming first. Mm-Hmm. As opposed to the head. They're monitoring the, the heartbeat. Everything's fine. And I give birth to Tyler, his name was, and it's the most beautiful little baby.

I'm holding him. And you know, they're putting the little plastic thing on his foot as they do, you know, with the name of the baby and the time of birth. And he stops breathing. Oh no. And I'm lying there holding him and I wanna shake him. But you know what? You're told not to shake a baby. And I can hear all the other babies in the ward crying 'cause they've just been born.

And I'm saying to him, Ty, breathe. And I'm saying to God, you've taken the wrong person. It should be me, not him. But there was that level of not wanting to, not wanting to accept that I'd lost my baby boy. And I kind of at that point just. I stopped living, stopped existing. Mm-Hmm. I kind of switched off. It was dark 24 7.

There was no light. I remember leaving the hospital feeling really empty. I remember my pillow never being dry. My arms were longing to hold him. I had my daughter and my son, but I couldn't, I couldn't find the comfort in them. I used to have large patio doors and I used to sit on the floor looking out, saying, at that point to God.

'cause I believed, give me back what you've taken. You know, you should have never have done this. Why did you do this? And at night I would hear a baby cry. I would hear the baby cry. It wasn't my other son. It wasn't my daughter. I would hear him crying. Sorry. I, um, didn't go to work. I didn't feed the kids, which sounds terrible, but I couldn't.

I mentally had got to a point where I just wanted out of this painful life. And it was the hardest thing I've ever been through, but I did manage to persuade my partner. To give me another baby, you know? 'cause he didn't, that time he wasn't even sleeping with me. He was sleeping somewhere else and Mm. He just didn't want anything to do with me.

Mm-Hmm. He said I was disgusting. No man would want me that I was, you know, really ugly and I was lucky to even have him come near me.

[00:31:58] Jordan Harbinger: Mm. Just classic abuser, nonsense.

[00:32:00] Nina Aouilk: You believe what you're told. Yeah. When you are in that state of mind, especially being depressed, you do. Mm-Hmm. And I, um, did get pregnant and I remember going to hospital thinking it's a girl.

So I've had three boys now. The two boys, sorry, it won't be a third boy. And saying to them, I want a pink room. And I was really insisting on having a pink. I wasn't even aware I was in labor. I went to hospital not feeling well, and they said, you're in labor. The baby's coming today. I said, it's not due for a while.

They said it's coming today. It was a really pretty pink room. And I wouldn't sit down. I wanted this baby standing. Don't ask me why. Okay. So, um, I was really adamant about standing up, not laying down. I said, it's for your reasons. I don't wanna lie down for your reasons. I wanna stand up for my peace and gravity.

It was probably the easiest birth. And he was the biggest baby. And he, you know, I held onto him for dear life, making sure he was still breathing. Mm-Hmm. And I didn't sleep all night just watching him, just watching his, every little move. And he looked just like Tyler. I have to admit, I wanted to keep the T.

So I named him something with T and he kind of gave me a reason to live again, I guess. Mm-Hmm. And he is my youngest.

[00:33:02] Jordan Harbinger: As your children got older, did they start to realize what was going on at home?

[00:33:06] Nina Aouilk: Yeah. My daughter went to university. She, when you break out of a cycle, you look back and you think this isn't normal.

She looked back and she could tell things weren't okay. Yeah. So she questioned her dad and said, why'd you talk to her like that? Why'd you do this? And the abuse was getting so much so that he stopped us talking. He said, you can't speak to each other. I would put my phone here on a table every day and he would check through it to see if I'd spoken to her or not, and it became a norm that we would keep our phones here.

He would track my car to work. He would have A-C-C-T-V put everywhere I went so that he could remotely access it. Oh geez. If I went to a supermarket, I show him the receipt and the timestamp so he knew when I was there and how long I was there for. So the control became unbearable. And he knew that he was losing control because my daughter had gone to university and my middle son, he's sort of five years younger than my daughter.

He had done his GCSEs, which I dunno what you call here, but it's like your middle school before you go to, just before university. So he was studying for them and he, his father hit him for no reason. He came down the stairs and just punched him in the back of his head with a real third. And I stood up and said, don't do that.

Why are you hitting my children? Instead of saying, right, I'm going, mm, I thought I'll send him away. 'cause that's the right thing to do because your reality is so distorted. You can't see straight, you don't understand what's happening right in front of you because you are almost blinded by what's going on.

It's almost like a cloud above you that doesn't shift and you're not doing anything to make it shift. You're not stepping away, you're standing into that cloud deliberately. But I just didn't see it and I regret not seeing it. So I sent him to boarding school, but that meant that's a lot of money I've gotta pay in a British boarding school.

And I thought, you know what's really good? He carries on playing his soccer, which he was playing at high level. It's really good. Us and the youngest one too. He'll go next year or the year after, but I just need to save up. So it meant I had to work harder. Mm-Hmm. So I'm opening up a new business, which was my solution to everything.

Oh, Jordan, you want that? I'll go open a new business and I'll create the money for it. My youngest son became ill because suddenly his buffer had gone. That person he ran to every time I was being dragged into the kitchen and being beaten. Mm-hmm. He disappeared. It was just the two of us left and there was a lot of noise, physical and men, you know, mental noise for two people, and it became unbearable for him.

So stress has to go somewhere and if it stays in your body, it makes you sick. It made him sick. He ended up with an autoimmune disease. Again, there was this thing, don't talk about anything out of the house. If you do, you know, I'll find out and I'll kill you. I'll do this. You can't leave. I will kill you.

You can't make it on your own. So we were drowning, literally both of us and. I was in the hospital, he had a very big operation. It was a very touch and go situation and I asked him to come, his father, I said, please come because he's got this. He'd planned a trip to China during all of this. Your are sons ill in hospital.

You're not gonna go anywhere. You are gonna be there 24 7. He wasn't, he didn't come once to visit him. My daughter turned up from university and said, I'm here for you. And it was reassuring because I didn't know what was gonna happen on the other side of him going through those doors when he had his operation.

I didn't know if he was gonna come back or not. And you know anybody with a sick child, my heart goes out to them too 'cause it's a horrible place to be. But we did come back home eventually after feeling like we'd been in hospital forever and I was working from hospital. I was taking calls while staying with him.

I would not move. You know, I slept there. I didn't go anywhere. The day we got back, it was a couple of days later, my daughter gets a picture message on her phone saying, I'm sorry from my father. And every time I had seen my daughter. She had said, it feels like this is a goodbye because I feel like he'll kill you and I'll never see you again.

Oh my gosh. So for her, she was in constant anxiety and she had just got into this new degree she wanted to do. She's a biomedical scientist. She wanted to study dentistry. They turned her down over and over and over again. She finally gets into King's College, which is the best university for dentistry.

And this happens, you know, she gets this picture message. So it knocked her for six. And

[00:37:01] Jordan Harbinger: what's the picture message?

[00:37:03] Nina Aouilk: The picture message? Yeah. Sorry. It's myself asleep on a sofa. I didn't sleep because of the setting on pillow. I had insomnia, but also her father, my partner would lock our doors at 11 o'clock at night and reopen them at six.

It was like a control thing. Yeah,

[00:37:18] Jordan Harbinger: like a prison warden.

[00:37:19] Nina Aouilk: I didn't sleep ever. I was really bad at sleeping. I'd go for days without sleeping. But my son's picture that he she'd received was him slumped on a table in a really awkward way. And she just knew her heart. That instinct was telling us something's wrong.

This shouldn't be this way. So she panicked and she didn't know what to do to the point where she called me and people say, why didn't she call the police? But when you're in a panic, you do what comes first. She called me and I didn't answer. She called and called and called until I did answer. But when I did, my throat was really dry and I said, let me just get some water.

And I've got the phone. In one hand, I've gone to turn the tap on. I turned to look this way, and on the stove he's turned all the, all the taps on of the stove. So this gas completely. So the house is full of gas and people say, well, you can't die of that, but you can. You can die of carbon. Of course you can.

Yeah. If I'd woke up later on and switch the light on the house would've exploded. Mm-Hmm. It was literally an accident waiting to happen, which led us to being removed because of the situation. So we were removed in 2015, both my youngest son and myself. Because of domestic violence.

[00:38:27] Jordan Harbinger: So the state intervened in in this.

[00:38:29] Nina Aouilk: He told the school my son. Oh, good for him. Yeah. He, there's a lot of courage it takes for you to ask for help. Yeah. Especially being a man, it was hard for me to ask for help. I never asked, he did it for me, but we were placed in a very disgusting, safe home as they call it, where we stepped in the door, the cop it squelched because it was full of rine Who?

And the wall was full of human feces and it was inhabitable. Really? Yeah. But because I was a millionaire on paper, it led us to only be allowed to stay there for a certain time. And that led to homelessness seven years ago.

[00:38:59] Jordan Harbinger: Wow. The Wow. Okay. So you didn't have access to the money, but they said, oh, you, you have means you can, you'll be fine.

We're just gonna sve you off the door. 'cause money's

[00:39:08] Nina Aouilk: often in bricks and mortar. Money's often in machinery. Sure. Money's often in assets. Right. You know, business assets. So. Did I have accessible money? No. They told me when I left not to take a thing. It's that whole panic thing. You know, you've got 20 minutes to leave, what do you take?

Mm-Hmm. If I take you into a supermarket and I say, Jordan, you've got five minutes to grab what you can for the first three minutes, you're gonna panic. Think what'll take? Yeah. I'm getting

[00:39:28] Jordan Harbinger: a cart full of. Potatoes or,

[00:39:30] Nina Aouilk: yeah. You dunno what to take. So we took literally the coat on my back, which is again, prominent for me because it provided a shelter a month.

[00:39:39] Jordan Harbinger: So you leave, does he try to follow you? 'cause abusers often don't let things go?

[00:39:43] Nina Aouilk: Yeah, I mean I, he's still looking for me. My really mother and father found I had left and they still decided they would look for me as well because now I was out there again.

[00:39:52] Jordan Harbinger: They won't find you here in Canada where we're recording this.

That's an awful feeling. That's a really terrible feeling.

[00:39:59] Nina Aouilk: Well, I spent a lot of my time looking over my shoulder, walking on eggshells, but now I don't. I found this new freedom, I call it. Yeah. And it's on the other side of love. And I encourage others that when you become less fearful, when you look on the other side of fear, you'll find this immense amount of love and freedom that comes with it.

[00:40:19] Jordan Harbinger: This is the Jordan Harbinger Show with our guest Nina Och. We'll be right back. This episode is sponsored in part by Fly Kit. If you travel internationally, you know how brutal jet lag can be. It gets worse for me as I get older and I mean like exponentially somehow. It used to wipe me out for days, sometimes even weeks after a trip until I found FLY kit, which is a total game changer.

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It is that important that you support those who support the show. Now for the rest of my conversation with Nina Wilk, what about contact with your family? Have they ever, has your brother ever maybe called you and said, Hey. We were pretty terrible to you, or Hey, where are you? Or how are you? Or anything like that.

I mean, I mean,

[00:43:21] Nina Aouilk: during my relationship with my ex-partner Mm-Hmm. My brother did find me. Oh, okay. After 15 years, um, I was with my partner for 23 years. So after 15 years he found me to apologize because he'd been caught by the police attacking his girlfriend at the time with a hammer. Okay. And the police in the United Kingdom have come up with this new thing that if you go through a, a series of meetings and counseling sessions, you don't have to have charges pressed against you.

I see. You can correct yourself and, you know, do some community service or something. So we had to come and find me. 'cause he told them quite openly what he'd done, which, you know, is giving evidence in a way. Right. But they, um, got me to sign a paper, which I did not really wanting to, but I felt pressured to.

He said, do you forgive me? I said, I do forgive you. I'll never forget I didn't want anything to do with him really. But I tried for a few months with my children. I realized in those 15 years how different I had become. Mm-Hmm. How I was no longer so in that South Asian mentality. Right. I didn't do things like them.

I felt like an outsider, which I knew I was, but for the right reasons, you know, I had more compassion, more love. They were very angry at their children or very dismissive. My brother, coincidentally, not long after, had an arranged marriage that you chose. He chose the bride and he had a girl and he didn't celebrate the girl.

And that was kind of like the breaking point where I thought, well, he's just come out of the hospital angry, just stormed off. And I didn't have too much interaction, but I had enough to know what was going on. I thought, I don't want this, I don't want my children subjected to this either. And what is family?

I was pining for this family. I was feeling I don't belong, but I belong to me. Yeah. You know, home isn't there. Mm-Hmm. Home is where you make it. And I, I had a realization that I didn't need them anymore.

[00:45:04] Jordan Harbinger: That's quite horrible. I feel almost compelled to say, I would imagine most Indians, most Sikh people are not like this.

[00:45:11] Nina Aouilk: Well, a lot of people say, well, you know what? I get a lot of comments on, I've done over a hundred podcasts and interviews. I've, this is probably gonna be my last, if I do another one, it'll be,

[00:45:20] Jordan Harbinger: oh, that's nice to hear, I think. Or is it bad because we're number 100 and you're sick going,

[00:45:24] Nina Aouilk: no, no, you're, this

[00:45:25] Jordan Harbinger: is the last straw, Jordan.

[00:45:26] Nina Aouilk: No, no. It's just, I go back and forth in my life. So I go back to that 6-year-old, I go back to that 14-year-old girl that was raped. I go back to the 21-year-old that barely escape death. This can't be

[00:45:37] Jordan Harbinger: pleasant. Yeah. And

[00:45:38] Nina Aouilk: it's like taking bits of myself and leaving them there. Mm-Hmm. And at 50, I became whole.

I, I found who I was. I had this almost awakening of who I really was and what life meant. So if I keep going back and forth, which I've been doing for over nearly a year and a half now, I leave fragments of myself and I want to be that whole person so I can be better for the, I don't blame you for my future and the people that I'm helping.

So I'm in a great place. So people that are listening to this mustn't think I'm really sad or depressed because I'm not, you know, finding myself has been the best thing. But I tell my story and I describe it as cutting myself open so that other people can heal. It is because people do come forward.

[00:46:16] Jordan Harbinger: It's crazy to me that this is happening not just in rural India where I'm sure it still happens.

[00:46:20] Nina Aouilk: It does happen. Yeah. But

[00:46:21] Jordan Harbinger: Canada, the uk Yeah, the United States, it's definitely, if it's happening in the UK in the eighties and nineties, it's for sure happening in the United States.

[00:46:29] Nina Aouilk: Yeah. As I was saying earlier, I've had 15,000 messages, more or less. Yeah. Uh, if not more. And a lot of them are from people from my culture of ages between 10 and 17, 18, and they are young girls who are describing my life.

My old life, so I know there's other Ninas out there. I know there are millions of Ninas that are living that life that I escaped. So I don't really want to not do things about it. I, I feel it's a calling, it's my purpose to do something about it. So it's still happening, but it's hidden. Mm-Hmm. You know, the messages may not be as clear as they were.

For me, sexual is very common. It's normally an uncle or someone in the family and it happens, but no one talks about it because it's such a stigma. And we're taught so much so by our culture that we shouldn't speak out in the communities. That there's a shame factor. Sure. Which fully enables the abuse.

I'm telling everyone the shame isn't on you. No. It's on the person that's done this. Their hands are dirty, not yours. Speak out in your truth. There is a sense of healing in speaking out. Mm-Hmm. You know, I tell people this as well, that it's hard. It's really difficult revisiting those places, but. When you do, you learn to let go.

You learn to allow that time to pass and to become present where you are now.

[00:47:39] Jordan Harbinger: It's very brave of you. I mean, I always go back and forth with these types of interviews where I'm, 'cause I know I'm asking you to relive the most horrific moments of your life in like ideally 90 minutes. Right? Can we cram in the worst, you know, thing And it's difficult to ask somebody to do that.

It's very brave of you to do that. I don't blame you for not wanting to do it a hundred more times.

[00:47:59] Nina Aouilk: Yeah. Mentally it takes a toll. Yeah. And every time I say I'm not gonna do it, hundreds of more, more women will come in. And men as well. It's not just women, you know, people resonate with someone else's pain.

And pain is pain, whichever form it comes in. So I want everyone to know that they're not alone. 'cause I felt alone very much in my life. Mm-Hmm. You can be a mother, you can be a daughter, you can be your girlfriend or a wife. But when you're on your own, if you dunno who you are, that's a real sense of being alone.

I found me three years ago. I'm 53. I found myself at 50, and I really love who I am, and I loved all the bits that nobody else did. I love the fact that I had to go through this journey because I, with my clients, I teach them that it's okay having a goal and celebrating that goal, but it's the journey that makes you Mm-Hmm.

If you learn to celebrate the goods and the bads on your journey, then life is really beautiful.

[00:48:46] Jordan Harbinger: What about your extended family? Do they all kind of just like, oh, we, we don't talk with them, or we something weird's going on there, or were they, it just seems bizarre that everyone's sort of in on this.

It's like a weird conspiracy.

[00:48:59] Nina Aouilk: I've had a lot of threats from family members. Still don't speak at why you're doing this, what difference it's going to make now. Your poor father. Oh, yeah. I haven't mentioned something that's really important, which is in 2015, I had the police contact me and say to me they needed a character reference for my father.

I wasn't really in the right frame of mind. Hey, I was homeless. Right. I couldn't think straight. I had my son's hand in mind and I had nothing else to say that I had in my life really. Character reference. What is that? So I found it difficult to even converse with the police, but the character reference was for a charge that was made against my father because he'd abducted my sister and I said, I don't have a sister.

Mm-Hmm? They said, you have a 6-year-old half sister. Your father, sorry, your father took your half-sister. He took her to India and she's missing, I couldn't, couldn't get it. I couldn't understand it. I couldn't absorb it. But when I got to a point where I found me, I revisited that horrible place and horrible thing because we bury things because we can't deal with it.

And I realized that I have a half-sister called Julia. I've not long found that out. Her name, she's half Polish. My father had had an affair and he hid this affair. And he hid the fact he had a daughter, a whole daughter, and a whole person. He is hiding. Mm-Hmm. So to hide her from the community and being found out, he abducted.

I took her without the mother's knowledge and he sold her to human traffickers in India.

[00:50:27] Jordan Harbinger: Oh my God.

[00:50:28] Nina Aouilk: Where they, um, harvest organs. And when I had the acknowledgement, this has happened, and I actually understood, I realized I couldn't stay quiet. And that's when I decided to speak out. I felt guilty. I don't feel guilty now, but I did.

I felt guilty because I hadn't, I hadn't held him accountable, you know, for him. He was above the law. He was getting away with things. I didn't press charges, but I understood it as well. I wasn't able to at that point. But now being this person that says she's found herself, who's escaped the control of another person who's now free, what could I do with my time?

How could I make it matter in her honor? What could I do? Wow. So I started speaking out. I work with other nonprofits. There's one in Switzerland. In Geneva called Youth Underground. She taught me a lot. You know, Rasha given her a shout out. She deserves it. She does a lot of work with the youth, teaching 'em about grooming.

She's coming to America soon as well, working here. And she taught me a lot of things. I worked with another nonprofit. I can't say where they are 'cause they're more underground. Mm-Hmm. But they actually rescue children and I begged them to help me. They told me she'd been left somewhere where they harvest organs.

That's awful. This is maybe because of the interest from the police. They won't do that to her. They'll keep her as a servant and sell her to the Middle East. Where the Middle East thing comes into play as well, because they have a lot of housemaid and servants. But the point is, she's still missing. He went to prison for four years.

She's still missing. She's still missing. And

[00:51:56] Jordan Harbinger: your, sorry, your father went to prison for four years.

[00:51:58] Nina Aouilk: He went to prison for four years, thank goodness. But because of cultural influences, because of the honor in which he took her, because of the sake of honor and attempted honor killing. It was reduced. So he was out of prison and he's living his life, but she's, she's nowhere to be seen.

Mm-Hmm.

[00:52:18] Jordan Harbinger: This is real. This is really horrifying. How many honor killings are happening in the uk? Do we have stats on this? I mean, of course I'm imagining it's like 90% unreported, but I'm

[00:52:28] Nina Aouilk: not a statistical person. I know you all have heard your podcasts. I know your facts and figures, but I'm not a fact.

I'm definitely a figure of influence when it comes to honor based killing, because I've lived it. I have the lived experience, I have the pain, I have the scars. You know, I have the tears. I was not reported. Um, none of my abuse was reported in life. And so many people go under the radar because we're too scared.

So many people are taken outta the country and killed. But yeah, there's, I think 12 girls every month get killed, is the statistical cheers. But that's nothing I know. That's nothing. I know it's not true. I've stood next to a girl whose sister was killed in parliament in the police area. We've stood together and spoken because.

Her sister had gone to the police station and said, they're gonna kill me. And the police have gone. Yeah. Okay. And the video footage is now there on, on a, um, documentary that people can see. But the point is she was ignored. So now I sit on two boards at Scotland Yard Advisory Boards. I'm in the home office, I work with forced marriage unit.

I'm on their board, but there's no point being on these boards and doing nothing. Mm-Hmm. So I'm that voice that actually speaks up. I'm not a yes person, I'm not a destructive or dis deliberately don't want to cause a problem, but I want the truth. I want them to do something. And I believe that, you know, if all of us stand up, we can create a little bit of change.

I'm determined to create some change, ripples of change, that maybe the future generations will benefit. But the key are men. The key is you a man bringing forward compassion to give almost that standing that this is how a father should be, how a brother should be. You know, that's the key. So I'm working really hard to create awareness and, you know, by going around talking the way it.

I've been doing in the US on child marriages. I've spoke in Dallas about that. There's a huge problem with child marriages in in America itself. All four states there. It's so crazy

[00:54:18] Jordan Harbinger: to hear that,

[00:54:19] Nina Aouilk: but it's true and, and you know, having had the experiences I've had, I know that I'm not doing this now just for my sister.

I'm doing it for all of those girls, but also the boys that have had no one. Those people that feel alone, they're the ones I'm doing it for. The ones that felt they had nobody there for them.

[00:54:33] Jordan Harbinger: Nina, thank you so much. End honor killings.org. We'll link it in the show notes. This is really incredible. It's just an, an unbelievable story.

Amazing story I should say, and shocking story. And it's very, again, very brave of you to tell it, to speak out, to help others. I just think it's really something we all need to know about. This is happening right under our noses, which I think is the most disgusting part of the whole thing is it's way more common than we think, and it's happening right here, whether we know it or not.

[00:55:00] Nina Aouilk: I mean, I'd like to say before we go is Mm-Hmm. What people can do. Yeah. People always say, well, what can I do? I can't do anything. I don't want 'em to listen to this and just feel bad for me or bad for my story or bad for the girls. I want 'em to honor what I've been through. I want 'em to honor me by asking a question to anyone that they come across that they feel something's not right.

Mm-Hmm. Listen to your intuition and do something. Say something, you know, ask the question. I even if it's, are you okay? If you see a domestic violence altercation happening on, I don't know, a train or a shopping center, destroy that situation by asking a simple question, when I say destroy, you can completely shut that down by saying, have you got the time?

Interrupting them or saying, do you know which bus goes to, or Do you know which train I need to catch? Or You guys won't know where this address is. It completely destroys that situation. It stops the argument. Interesting. Completely. But just by following your intuition, if you know somebody's in the house next to you, that doesn't come out, the daughters are treated badly.

You can hear the screaming, make a discreet call. You don't have to be in the face of this person. You can make a discreet call and be anonymous and just say, you know what? I'm suspicious that the children not being treated well. Mm-Hmm. Because too many of us turn a blind eye, and that's why this continues.

[00:56:09] Jordan Harbinger: I think also in this was mentioned elsewhere, possibly by you, if you're being taken somewhere against your will or you know someone where that's happening, your advice was to stick metal objects in in places. Yeah.

[00:56:20] Nina Aouilk: If you are, if you know that you're going to be sent to India the way I was, Mm-Hmm. I wish somebody had told me this.

It would've maybe helped me in that time if I was being forced. But play something metallic into your underwear or your pockets that your parents don't dunno about. It'll set off the radar and then you can ask for help. You must ask for help. It's so hard. But the people that are working in these places know these things happen.

I'm trying to get in to train them myself. Yeah. But you know, ask for help and it'll stop you being killed. You deserve to live. They deserve it. Anyone listening, they deserve it. You are good enough,

[00:56:51] Jordan Harbinger: Nina. Thank you so much.

[00:56:52] Nina Aouilk: Thank you. Thank you, Jordan.

[00:56:55] Jordan Harbinger: You're about to hear a preview of one of my favorite stories on the Jordan Harbinger Show with Megan Phelps Roper.

She used to belong to one of the most hateful religious cults in America, the Westboro Baptist Church. She was born into this church and later escaped. To hear her tell the story firsthand is really incredible.

[00:57:11] Clip: I started protesting when I was five years old, but even at that first picket, there was a sign that said, gays are worthy of death.

So God hates facts is what West Bro's message that we became known for. We were the good guys and everyone outside the church was evil and going to hell, and we had the only message that would bring the world any hope. We had to go and warn people, these terrible things are happening, and if you want this pain to stop, then you have to change because God isn't going to change.

After the September 11 attacks, we had the sign that said, thank God for September 11. What were we thinking? This massive crowd comes down. We were at this corner of this intersection of these three streets. By the time they actually reached us, we're just enraged. There was no space between us and them.

It got really dicey. One of my cousins gave his signs to somebody else and like started standing on top of a trash can, pretending like he wasn't with us. They were, again, incredibly intense because obviously the circumstances are so sobering. It brings me incredible sadness to think about Now I can't do this forever.

And my family, they would refuse to have any contact with me at all. Once I left somebody that we had confided in, sent a letter to my parents and told them that we were planning to leave, and then that email came in and. And we left

[00:58:32] Jordan Harbinger: for more with Megan, including the details of her harrowing experience.

Check out episode 3 0 2 of the Jordan Harbinger show. I'm never sure how to wrap up these kinds of really just intense conversations. I think all of us are gonna be thinking about this one for quite some time. Her non-profit and honor killings.org will be linked in the show notes. Honor is spelled the British Way with a U after that last O.

All things Dina will be in the show notes@jordanharbinger.com, or just as the AI chatbot on the website, transcripts are in the show notes, advertisers deals, discount codes, and ways to support the show all at Jordan harbinger.com/deals. Please consider supporting those who support this show. Also, our newsletter.

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