Hidden Domestic Violence Against Women

Recently a friend introduced me to a woman she knows who is facing domestic violence in her marriage. The young woman is 29 years old with four kids, and she lives in poor neighborhood in Cairo.

At first the woman agreed to film with me, but later she called me, whispering to me on the phone that she couldn’t film with me. She said she feared her husband's retaliation if he ever found out that she had talked with anyone about her situation.

I understood what she meant, of course. So I asked her if she could talk to me on the phone sometime, and reassured her that I would only record her voice. The young women took a long pause to consider, but then said, “Yes, that could work. I’ll call you when my husband leaves the house.”

She did call me after midnight that night. For the sake of protecting her identity I’ll refer to her as “R.”

R was married right after she finished high school, to someone who is ten years older than she is. During her engagement period she hardly talked to her fiance without her parents sitting close by. She confessed to me that she was happy about the prospect, since everyone around her was so encouraging. The idea of getting married was exciting, even though she had no idea what married life was about. "I wish we had talked more before we got married," she told me.

I asked R what kind of conversations she hoped to have with her fiance before marriage. She said, “I don’t know. I just wanted to have a chance to talk to him, even though at the time I wouldn’t have known what to talk about. I was quite young.”

Then I asked R what she would have asked him if she knew what she knows now that she lives with him. “I would ask him if he would beat me up after married," she told me bluntly. "I would ask him if he would call me the daughter of a bitch all the time? I would ask him if he would use me a sex toy, or a baby machine?”

I could hear R crying, so I asked if she wanted to stop the interview. But she said she wanted to continue.

R went on to tell me how she can’t even feel her husband beating her anymore. The signs of the abuse are the only reminders of the beating. Crying becomes her only friend; a salvation.

I asked R why doesn’t she talk to her mother or father? She replied, “I did. My mother told me that all marriages have problems, and now that I have kids, I should just focus on them and live my life. My father said that we are from south of Egypt, and we don’t seek divorce no matter what.”

R explained to me that, “under all the family values we have on the surface, we have no time for each other. We all have problems, and nobody wants to worry about someone else's issues."

I asked whether R talks with her sister about her situation. She said that her sister was also married young, to an older men, and "goes into a deep depression sometimes because she suffers from the same problems in her own marriage.”

R went on to tell me her routine: She starts her day early, getting her four kids to school during the school seasons, and making sure that her husband has clean, ironed clothes to wear for work. So she really takes care of five people.

After R takes her kids to school, she shops for food for dinner. She makes a point to stop at her mother's home, so she can help her if she needs anything. Otherwise she will go home to take care of the apartment and be alone with her dark thoughts, and that is not a good option for her.

When R gets home in the afternoon, she cleans the house for few hours, and prepares food for the kids and her husband. She serves the food for the family when they get home. Then she gets tea ready for her husband, who drinks his tea and then take a nap.

R deals with the kids by herself, and helps them with their homework. She tries very hard to keep them quiet, away from her sleeping husband. Otherwise the husband's nap will be interrupted. And if that happens, he will get angry, and more often than not, he will start yelling and beating her and the kids. That leaves the kids crying, and leaves R feeling helpless and tired.

If R's husband gets a good rest, he will get up and change into the clean clothes R has made ready for him, so he can go out, probably to hang out with his friends in a coffee shop. "God knows what he does when he is out of the house," says R. "My husband gets home very late, and dives right away into deep sleeping and snoring. I stay up so that he can do that. It takes me hours to go sleep, many times with my thoughts driving me to cry myself to sleep."

After hearing R's story, and feeling how hard she was trying to stay strong and not to cry over the phone again, I felt like I had to do something to help her.

A few weeks ago I met with two doctors from El Nadeem center in Cairo. I emailed them about R's situation, and they were very helpful. El Nadeem center encouraged R to make an appointment to meet her, and see if they can help her.

R promised me that she would call and make an appointment with the center.


I hope she will.

"Would you marry a woman who doesn't wear hijab?"

I’ve always been curious about hijab. Hijab is the custom of women wearing a headscarf, young girls covering their hair, and the long dresses that cover women's body shapes. It's interesting at what age the choice to wear hijab comes up in a woman's life in Egypt.

While doing the research for my upcoming film about Arab women's rights in the middle east, I met with Amal, an educated professional. She lives and work in Cairo, uses public transportation, and hangs out at coffee shops in downtown Cairo with her close friends. Amal is a woman who has made the decision not to dress in hijab.

Amal revealed to me her struggles throughout her life with hijab. At a very young age she was enrolled in religious school to study Quran, learn how to memorise it, and understand its meaning. In that school she had to wear hijab, but going out with her family she didn’t have to wear it. Of course, that is a very confusing thing for a young girl, so at the time she decided to keep wearing the hijab. She understood from a Salafi sheik at the school that hijab is a must for Muslim women.

Growing and learning in Egyptian society, she had the opportunity to talk to other sheikhs from schools like Azher. Azher is a main Mosque in Egypt and north Africa. It has it is own schools and a university. Students come from all over the world to study Islam, as well as other fields including law and science. She learned that the hijab that she wore isn’t mandatory, and that covering her hair isn’t actually a big deal according to the teachings of Islam. So Amal decided to leave the hijab days behind her, and to wear what she wanted, because hijab wouldn't make her a better person; her behavior would.

Now Amal doesn't wear hijab. She shed her hijab clothes, and that opened her eyes to a whole different view of Egyptians. She found out that people think that she is Christian just because she wears modern clothes, like jeans and t-shirts. But it was a surprise to realize that people called her Christian as if it were an insult. Women on the metro in the women-only cars looked at her oddly, and were weirded out when she asked about the prayer time.

It turns out that women wearing hijab are very discriminating against the women who don't wear hijab, also know as the non muhajiba. The women wearing hijab can sometimes be verbally abusive, and may give them very dirty looks.

This wasn’t the first time I have heard that non muhajaba get harassed by the veiled and muhajaba womens. The Egyptian society, like every society in the word, goes through evolution. Where we are now may be a result of the Egyptian people working and living abroad in the gulf countries and learning from their traditions.

Egypt never used to be a hijab wearing country at all. Amal told me that she remembers women in the recent past used to wear mini skirts. You can still see a lot it in old pictures and films from the early 1990s and before.

Amal shared with me a lot of interesting insights about hijab, and our conversation inspired me to do an informal poll about Hijab.

I asked ten of my Egyptian male friends if a woman's choice to wear hijab would influence their decisions when it comes to marrying someone. All of the men I spoke with are well-educated and consider themselves liberal and forward-thinking. They are also all married, engaged, or looking to get married.

Here are some of the things they had to say:

• "Women who wear hijab would be better, and well behaved."
• "I would make my wife wear hijab anyway, so it is better if she started wearing it before marriage."
• "If I were engaged to a girl who wears hijab, my family would be happier and bless my choice."
• "Our Egyptian society is awful and I’d feel better if my wife or soon-to-be wife is veiled, so she won’t be harassed on the street."

Overall, the results were nine to one in favor of the girls wearing hijab.

Inspiring Interview With Dr. Magda Adly

Today, as part of the filming for my upcoming documentary about women's rights in the Middle East, I had an interview with Dr. Magda Adly, the Director of Nadeem Center for Rehabilitation of Victims of Violence.

Dr. Adly revealed a few chilling statistics about violence against women in Egypt. She was very moved and sad when she told me the number of women who had been victim of sexual harassment in Tahrir Square. Many of them were targeted because of what the Square represented during the revolution. Tahrir Square was the place where all Egyptians came together and agreed on one thing: to remove Mubarak from office.

Dr. Adly also talked with me about the impact of religion and tradition on women's lives in Egypt. For example, how sad women get when they discover that they are having a baby girl, and how difficult it is for a wife to bring the news to her husband. Having many girls may even result in divorce, or it is sometimes used as an excuse for a man getting a second wife, or more.

She emphasized that couples are almost universally interested in having a boy over a girl. Even though they both understand it is not the woman's fault if she is pregnant with a girl. She is blamed for it anyway.

It was an amazing interview with an incredible woman, who has been working her entire life to combat violence against women. I'm excited to have her as part of my upcoming film.