Fatma Mint Mamodou

Fatma Mint Mamodou was born a slave, just as everyone in her family had for generations been born into slavery. This state is not remarkable to her. Not much is remarkable to her. When asked if she and the other slave girls in her village were raped, she responded, "Of course they would come in the night when they needed to breed us. Is that what you mean by rape?"

For years - all of her adult life, in fact - Fatma would begin her day by finding water, cooking breakfast, cleaning the tents, tending to the goats, and nursing her mistress' children. She gave birth to her own son in a field with the goats. He would immediately become the property of her master, just as she had.

"God created me to be a slave, just as he created a camel to be a camel."

Only after one particularly brutal beating - of which Fatma explains, "I was sure he would slaughter me" - did she flee her master's home, leaving behind her three small children.

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