Browse Items (218 total) Browse All Browse by Tag Search Items Browse Map of 5 Sort by: TitleCreatorDate Added Fatima Ali / 25 years old, Going out of my house is such an adventure that I go through every day and I'm ready for it. There is not a single time that I go out in the street without being harassed but it never stopped me from wearing what I like. I believe I'm different and I know that people see me as different and I'm working on letting them respect that I'm different. I got a lot of harassment because of my skin colour; I always hear sexual suggestive because I'm black, which doesn't really annoy me. Yet, one of the things that really annoys me is when someone spits on me because of my skin colour, which already happened a lot of times. The hardest situation I had to go through was when I was walking in the street in Downtown and a child with his mom shouted at me: "Hey you black girl with dirty hair." I had my Rastas and responded to his mother saying that it would be good if you teach him how to behave, but then they gathered around me and started beating me. They repeated harassing and annoying me so many times afterwards and it started to annoy me because I was passing by the same street where they also live, but still I refuse to respond to violence with violence. All of this happened only because I had Rasta dreadlocks, which was strange for society. Some time later after this incident I shaved my head, but people still annoy me in the street because of my skin colour. Roger Anis Fatima Ali / 25 years old, Going out of my house is such an adventure that I go through every day and I'm ready for it. There is not a single time that I go out in the street without being harassed but it never stopped me from wearing what I like. I believe I'm different and I know that people see me as different and I'm working on letting them respect that I'm different. I got a lot of harassment because of my skin colour; I always hear sexual suggestive because I'm black, which doesn't really annoy me. Yet, one of the things that really annoys me is when someone spits on me because of my skin colour, which already happened a lot of times. The hardest situation I had to go through was when I was walking in the street in Downtown and a child with his mom shouted at me: "Hey you black girl with dirty hair." I had my Rastas and responded to his mother saying that it would be good if you teach him how to behave, but then they gathered around me and started beating me. They repeated harassing and annoying me so many times afterwards and it started to annoy me because I was passing by the same street where they also live, but still I refuse to respond to violence with violence. All of this happened only because I had Rasta dreadlocks, which was strange for society. Some time later after this incident I shaved my head, but people still annoy me in the street because of my skin colour. Roger Anis Hala Nammr / 54 years old, Once I bought a very nice dress that I liked. After I bought it and tried it at home again, I immediately took it off and gave it to my daughter because I realized that I will not be able to wear it in Cairo. The dress was backless and I knew I will not feel comfortable wearing it, unless I was in a country other than Egypt. In a different place, I would wear it without hesitation. Roger Anis Hala Nammr / 54 years old, Once I bought a very nice dress that I liked. After I bought it and tried it at home again, I immediately took it off and gave it to my daughter because I realized that I will not be able to wear it in Cairo. The dress was backless and I knew I will not feel comfortable wearing it, unless I was in a country other than Egypt. In a different place, I would wear it without hesitation. Roger Anis Amria Mortada / 33 years old, I'm a tomboy. I feel it's more suitable for my character. I don't have any dresses, but every now and then I dream of wearing one and I end up becoming afraid of doing so because I fear the streets. So, I decided not to buy any. I bought a pair of pants, which seemed very normal to me but I was surprised when I got harassed verbally while wearing them. I never understood why this happened, but I was annoyed and was even shocked to know that it happened because of the colour of my pants. In the street, a girl becomes like merchandise, people are allowed to look at her as if she is displayed in a shop. Honestly, I'm still traumatized of what happened to me while wearing these pants and I decided since then never to wear it again. I I don't have the energy to stand against those who harass me. Roger Anis Amria Mortada / 33 years old, I'm a tomboy. I feel it's more suitable for my character. I don't have any dresses, but every now and then I dream of wearing one and I end up becoming afraid of doing so because I fear the streets. So, I decided not to buy any. I bought a pair of pants, which seemed very normal to me but I was surprised when I got harassed verbally while wearing them. I never understood why this happened, but I was annoyed and was even shocked to know that it happened because of the colour of my pants. In the street, a girl becomes like merchandise, people are allowed to look at her as if she is displayed in a shop. Honestly, I'm still traumatized of what happened to me while wearing these pants and I decided since then never to wear it again. I I don't have the energy to stand against those who harass me. Roger Anis Wafaa Lina Geoushy Noha Lina Geoushy Saadeya Lina Geoushy Enaiat Lina Geoushy Badreya Lina Geoushy Azza Lina Geoushy Chloe Sharrock Photographer Irine and Monika – El Bashra, Upper Egypt Irine comes from a small Coptic village in Upper Egypt. She was circumcised one day after school, when she was 12 years old. She doesn’t have much memories of it, but says she’s still deeply traumatized by the violence of the event. She got married at a young age, and gave birth to six kids. Two of them died during the delivery. Consequences of FGM are indeed going way beyond psychological trauma, since obstetrical complications can occur to the victims, such as post-partum hemorrhage, need of episiotomy, tearing of the tissues or flesh, while the rate of death among new born babies is higher. After the birth of her first daughter, she had long discussions with her husband about FGM. « He actually supported my choice, I think he understood it didn’t have anything to do with religion and could only arm Moneka. His family, however, didn’t accept our choice, and still pressure us today. » Chloe Sharrock Umm Malek and Malek – Qalanfil, Delta of Egypt Umm Malek lives in a small muslim village in the Delta of Egypt. She got circumcised at 10 years old and remains profoundly scared by the trauma of that day. « You can easily forget what you’ve eaten on that day, or how the weather was. But you can’t forget the trauma, the pain… » Malek is now fully conscient of the long term consequences of such practice on her mental health as well as in her married woman’s intimate life. « What we tend to ignore is that many divorces happen because of that barbarian practice. Women and men come become unsatisfied, it leads to a lot of frustration and anger. ». After giving birth to a daughter, she started attending awareness sessions lead by a local NGO in a nearby village. The consequences she was facing herself combined to these sessions convinced her for good that she couldn’t perpetrate that practice on her daughter. « I simply couldn’t inflict such misery to my own daughter. I want her to be happily married. » At first, women of her village pressured her to circumcise Malek, threatening that she would never get her daughter married if she didn’t. « But I took these women to the awareness sessions with me, and since then, five of them decided to not cut their daughters ! » Chloe Sharrock Marsa and Barbara Anna –El Bashra, Upper Egypt Marsa also comes from a Coptic community, where circumcision is still widely spread. When she was inflicted with FGM at a young age, she suffered from severe bleeding, and had to remain in bed for more than a week. Complications such as infections, HIV or severe bleedings are common in such rurale areas where FGM is practiced with non sterilized razor blades or knives. Tales of women being told to sit in buckets of hot water to heal the wound is also regularly recalled, attesting of the absolute lack of medical attention these young girls receive. While growing up, Marsa couldn’t get rid of the trauma and the fear of that event. Thankfully, women in her village were slowly giving up on that tradition following the public discourses of the local priest taking position against that practice. Chloe Sharrock Mariana, Yoanna and Febroina – Mallawi, Upper Egypt Mariana was circumcised on the same day as her sister and a dozen of young girls taken to the same house, one day after school. There, they were circumcised one after the other by a local da’ya (a village midwife). « Everybody was screaming, some girls tried running away… It was absolutely awful, and we weren’t even told what was happening except that it was for our own good ! » But a decade ago, Father Aghethaton, the coptic priest of the village, started militating against that practice. Through preaches at the church, awareness sessions and discussions with the mothers of the village, he slowly started eradicating that practice. His successor is now following his path, while almost half of the women of that community has supposedly abandoned the practice. Social pressure and religious arguments are often the two main barriers to the eradication of FGM. Chloe Sharrock Chloe Sharrock Photographer Browse All Browse by Tag Search Items Browse Map of 5 Sort by: TitleCreatorDate Added Output Formats atom, dcmes-xml, json, omeka-xml, rss2
