While Sotheby's will be auctioning the burqa Barbie dolls for charity, somewhere in the Sudan, a real live woman will be auctioned off to her new Muslim master and will disappear forever, hidden from view in her burqa prison. Ironically, she will be sold for not more than $33.00 which is a lot less than her toy counterpart will fetch at the Sotheby's auction.²

I hope Mattel knows not to manufacture a Muslim Ken doll for the simple fact that the two are not married and it would be death for either to be in the same room alone. If Mattel is stupid enough to make a Muslim Ken, then they better make him with a detachable penis so that the Imam doll can remove it without needing to use a dull knife.

Great move Mattel.

Notes

(1):

Daily Mail, 21 Nov 2009, It's Barbie in a burkha: World-famous doll gets a makeover to go under the hammer for 50th anniversary

One of the world's most famous children's toys, Barbie, has been given a makeover - wearing a burkha.

Wearing the traditional Islamic dress, the iconic doll is going undercover for a charity auction in connection with Sotheby's for Save The Children.

More than 500 Barbies went on show yesterday at the Salone dei Cinquecento, in Florence, Italy.

Makers Mattel are backing the exhibition which is the work of Italian designer Eliana Lorena.

(2):

Daniel Pipes, Jun 2002, Chattel Slavery in Sudan

Whether chattel slavery exists since 1983 on a massive scale in Sudan once was a subject of hot debate, but no longer. Its foul presence has by now been confirmed by such white-shoe institutions as the U.S. State Department, U.N. Special Rapporteurs, and Amnesty International.

The complicity of the militant Islamic government in Sudan has also been established. It dispatches armed militias to terrorize and subjugate non-Muslim communities in the predominantly Christian southern Sudan. This is jihad in the raw, the extending of Muslim rule. Jihad warriors torch homes and churches, loot, kill men, and capture women and children. Those slaves then face a forced march to the north, followed by beatings, hard labor, and compulsory conversion to Islam. Women and older girls also face ritual gang-rape, genital mutilation, and a life of sexual servitude.

Fortunately, starting in the early 1990s, Sudanese revolted by these practices - Muslim and non-Muslim – joined together and established mechanisms to free the slaves. Retrievers usually purchase the slaves for less than US$33 in local currency). Then, in an often harrowing journey, they guide the slaves back to the south and their home regions.