Khokha, street for women

Khokha, street for women

Motivation: Khaled was assigned to work on a project with Sally Osama; they were working together on a magazine that was supposed to be funded by the Sawiris Foundation, but the project fell apart. They were trying to find examples of marginalized women in society. Khaled had worked already on a project focusing on women who had lost their partners (published in Egypt Independent, currently Mada Masr), which had given him some access to certain groups of women who he would have otherwise not have access to. He wanted to keep working on similar exploratory projects about women in underprivileged conditions due to questions about gender power relations and privilege that were preoccupying him. Khokha was the result, but it was quite the challenge and quite the learning experience. He learnt more about their life patterns, such as what time of the day would be appropriate to engage with them in conversation/take photos.

"Khokha" is the Arabic for "Peach", Name of a small street in Coptic Cairo and the nickname of Khadija. Khadijah's husband left her in the 70's and people started calling her Khokha, Then till today, All the men in that small street either left their wives because they couldn't withstand the life in a slum Or they died, Now it's a street only for women, Single mothers, either widows or divorced, it's a place where everybody is taking care of everybody.

Sabry Khaled

http://sabrykhaled.com/stories/khokha-street-women/

It was supposed to be published in that magazine, but it ended up in another news outlet called Hibr. https://www.7iber.com/2015/01/photos-khokha-women-only/?%3E

2015

Approved to publish

Commissioned/supported/financed: Self-initiated

English, Arabic

Documentary photography

Location: Cairo