Prey

Immigration, Islam, and the Erosion of Women's Rights

By: Ayaan Hirsi Ali

Narrated by: Ayaan Hirsi Ali

Why are so few people talking about the eruption of sexual violence and harassment in Europe’s cities? No one in a position of power wants to admit that the problem is linked to the arrival of several million migrants—most of them young men—from Muslim-majority countries.

In Prey, the best-selling author of Infidel, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, presents startling statistics, criminal cases and personal testimony. Among these facts: In 2014, sexual violence in Western Europe surged following a period of stability. In 2018 Germany, “offences against sexual self-determination” rose 36 percent from their 2014 rate; nearly two-fifths of the suspects were non-German. In Austria in 2017, asylum-seekers were suspects in 11 percent of all reported rapes and sexual harassment cases, despite making up less than 1 percent of the total population.

This violence isn’t a figment of alt-right propaganda, Hirsi Ali insists, even if neo-Nazis exaggerate it. It’s a real problem that Europe—and the world—cannot continue to ignore. She explains why so many young Muslim men who arrive in Europe engage in sexual harassment and violence, tracing the roots of sexual violence in the Muslim world from institutionalized polygamy to the lack of legal and religious protections for women.

A refugee herself, Hirsi Ali is not against immigration. As a child in Somalia, she suffered female genital mutilation; as a young girl in Saudi Arabia, she was made to feel acutely aware of her own vulnerability. Immigration, she argues, requires integration and assimilation. She wants Europeans to reform their broken system—and for Americans to learn from European mistakes. If this doesn’t happen, the calls to exclude new Muslim migrants from Western countries will only grow louder.

Deeply researched and featuring fresh and often shocking revelations, Prey uncovers a sexual assault and harassment crisis in Europe that is turning the clock on women’s rights much further back than the #MeToo movement is advancing it.

Supplemental enhancement PDF accompanies the audiobook.

I love her voice and I very much enjoyed her research. She's brave to look into these issues and even more for sharing.

It is scary to think this book is based on facts. These immigrants have made it over the pond now and im sad to say I expect to see the same things happen here in America.

A Must Read/Hear

An incredibly important book. Difficult to hear the summations of crimes against women but powerful. The last 3 chapters should be required reading for everyone!!!

Superb

Accurately describes the descent into the reprohibition of women’s rights in western countries, the predatory view of women by men from certain cultural and ethnic areas, and the immediately need to protect women and rights worldwide.

Women's Rights are Dissolving. Ayaan Investigates.

Ayaan Hirsi Ali's newest book, "Prey", while researched and well-thought out for what Ayaan wanted to say to address the problems she was addressing, adding stories and examples of laws and loopholes that are used by immigrants, leaves you waiting with bated breath, waiting for Hirsi Ali to give concise solutions to the problems that she sees. It also, however, educates the reader to understand that the first problem to be solved is: citizens have not recognized what is actually going on in Europe AND that what is going on IS a problem, further exacerbated by other problems of sexism, patriarchy, rape culture, porn culture, etc. The book seems like a broken record in many ways, in the sense that, Hirsi Ali recounts some stories that we've heard before (those that made international press), societal problems, problematic cultural norms, religious values and political yo-yoing of problems and legislative impotence to deal with violence, etc. What is different about Hirsi Ali's book, however, is that "Prey" superimposes the "broken record" parts of Hirsi Ali's monograph with the issues of increased immigration and specifically with increased immigration from Muslim-majority cultures to demonstrate how immigration is changing Europe and women's rights in Europe. This book is not only a study on these issues: it is a warning to Europe and the entire world to pay attention and understand how mass immigration has, is and will continue, to change their cultures, permanently, for better and for worse.

Necessary Info, Tough to Get Through

The content is rich with statistics and a thorough analysis of the data that gives a tough, but fair reality. Hirsi Ali’s delivery, while authoritative and clearly knowledgeable, was the only weak point for me, but I think another reader would do this content a disservice. Chock this up to personal preference. It’s easily a 4/5 for me, though the content is definitely triggering for some and Hirsi Ali’s reading may be difficult for some to follow.