The interrogation had been going for six hours. The questions were relentless. “Where is your daughter!?” But Om Marina would not give in. She had hid her daughter and coldly replied to the police, “Over my dead body.” Her husband had left her to convert and he had sent the police to collect Marina. Egyptian law was, of course, on his side.
And why did he want his daughter? Because the more family members he could list on his identification card, the more food staples he could collect. That was the worth of his daughter in his eyes.
The incredible thing about this story is that Om Marina’s home consisted of a couch in the hallway of someone else’s house. A generous donor found out about their plight and said that they would be willing to provide half the cost of an apartment if Coptic Orphans covered the rest. Soon Om Marina and her daughter moved into their own apartment in Alexandria.
“I hope my daughter becomes a lawyer to fight injustice,” says Om Marina, who can now provide her daughter with an education as well as a safe place to call home.