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Thursday, November 24, 2005
In France's poor areas, girls pay a high price - Chicago Tribune
Fifteen-year-old Rawa risks verbal abuse--or worse--every time she leaves her house wearing jeans. Jenah was thrown out of her family home at 11, became a drug dealer at 13, and was raped by a relative a year later.
If young men in France's housing projects--scenes of recent arson and unrest--have it rough, girls often have it worse. Not only do they suffer from racism, unemployment and deprivation, they also endure daily harassment and even violence in their communities. "Women are double victims, of social and sexual discrimination as well as violence," said Fadela Amara, founder of Ni Putes, Ni Soumises (Neither a Whore nor Submissive), a group fighting to improve the lot of Muslim women and girls in impoverished French neighborhoods.
Some girls have taken to wearing Islamic head coverings as protection against violence. But then they face pressures from the French state, which has banned veils and other religious symbols from schools to uphold the country's secular principles--and to quell Islamic fundamentalism. Authorities argue that girls should be empowered to cast off veils that are sometimes forced on them by their parents.
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