While working in Abu Dhabi launching a literary festival, Caitlin McNamara alleges she was raped by a member of the Emirati royal family. A year on, she describes her struggle to hold her attacker to account, and to come to terms with what happened to her
In September 2019 Caitlin McNamara moved to Abu Dhabi to launch an Arabic edition of the Hay literary festival. One evening she says she was summoned to the villa of Sheikh Nahyan bin Mubarak Al Nahyan, the minister for tolerance. McNamara says during the four hours she was trapped there, she was repeatedly and increasingly violently assaulted.
McNamara talks to Rachel Humphreys about the year that followed her alleged attack. When she returned to the UK she tried to access help to process what she had been through and to take criminal action, but the CPS said the evidence had to fit the antiquated remit required to prosecute under international law. It met two of the three criteria, but not the third: that Nahyan was acting in the performance of his official duties at the time. While we continue to fight for the law to catch up with women’s realities, all we have is our stories, says McNamara. Perhaps our job isn’t to ‘move on’, but to speak up.
