Empty Daybook – Mounira Al Solh on 1 April 2016

On April Fools Day last year (sic), I learned from various news pages and extremely angry Facebook posts that at least seventy-six women, mostly Syrians, were detained near “Chez Maurice” in Jounieh – a town of “prostitution” north of Beirut, near the sea – as prisoners of sexual abuses. They were tortured and not allowed to see the sun for years. When I finally dared to visit Chez Maurice, I found it officially closed with red wax. Moisture from the Mediterranean had eaten up the walls, the furniture, and had probably eaten up those women from their insides, too.