ترجمة: تسنيم عبدالله “اكسر للبنت ضلع يطلعلها أربعة وعشرين!” البنت بتضِرِب علشان تتعلم وتتربى، الضرب حاجة هاتفيدها مش هاتأذيها، هايخليها محترمة ومابتغلطش! المجتمع مابيرفضش إن البنت تضرب، علشان كدة بيبقى صعب جداً نعمل حملات أو قوانين تجرّم العنف ضد المرأة. بنات كتير بيضطروا يهربوا من بيوتهم ويلجأوا للشارع بسبب اللي بيشوفوه من تحرش واغتصاب…
Nelly Ali
كانت طفلة بروح حلوة وعيون بتلمع، لحد ما أُغتصبت!
“مكان بعيد نعيش فيه أنا وماما وإخواتي لوحدنا، بعيد عن الأشرار، ومحدش يقدر يأذينا.” دي كانت إجابة أمل لما سألناها عن حاجة بتحلم بيها، أمل البنت اللي ضحكتها بتخطف قلبي، ولمعة عينيها بتحسسني إن كل حاجة حلوة، البنت اللي مليانة طاقة وحيوية، وروح بريئة وصافية؛ كل مرة كنت بروح الملجأ وبشوفها كنت بسأل نفسي ليه…
“Basma suffered from schizophrenia, fell pregnant in Upper Egypt, and was abandoned by the boy who repeatedly raped her once she was with child”
Featured Image: Shutterstock/ZouZou “She works at a sugar factory 28 days a month and she comes to the shelter to stay over two days a month. On her way here, she spends every penny she has earned buying food, toys and clothes for Noor”, Shaymaa was telling me about 14 year old Basma, because…
Street Girls – The Hymen and the Stamp of Shame
The shelter today had a different vibe. The more I go, the more natural things seem to be, the less acting “happy family” there is. Today there is an “institution” feeling bouncing off the walls, each for their own, survival of the fittest. I am taken aside by Shaimaa, the shelter psychologist who has been…
The Air that we Breathe… Too much for Street Kids?
As you clicked on this link to open it and read this post, you breathed, right? You just did it again. And again, right there, you did it again. Breathing, it’s so natural, so taken for granted. Today a little 1 day old baby couldn’t find those breaths, and she couldn’t get the help other…
Street Girls and the Female Stuff: On Toilets, Periods and Sanitary Towels
I always try to hold my pee until I go home. Not just in Cairo, but in London, in Germany, in the USA, wherever I am. I have this feeling that my pee needs to pass somewhere clean, somewhere, where I know the people who own the pee that passed before mine. Yes, sometimes that…
I’m Nine Years Old and My Stepfather Raped Me!
“A faraway place… where there are no people, only the sea and trees. Where people live very far away, because people are bad and they hurt each other and those who are good aren’t able and don’t know how to do anything about the bad people and they can’t help me”. This was Amal’s description…
Street Children, Disability and Prostitution for Survival
It was my third visit to the shelter. There was a happy atmosphere today which I later learnt always accompanied the arrival of a new baby. Shadia had come home with her new born after a C-Section the day before. I asked if I could go in to see her. I had never met Shadia…
“she held her for him in the bath and watched the drugged father pour boiling water from the kettle over the little tender skin until it burnt”
She was only 5 years old at the time and her little legs weren’t long enough to jump after her mother from rooftop to rooftop after the last violent beating her mother had received, tied up from a father high on drugs. She’d managed to jump six roof tops, but the distance of the seventh…
Why Farah Ran to the Window and Threw Herself from the Fourth Floor!
This is for Farah, whose incredible courage and strength remain unmatched in my mind. One of the things I’m most taken aback by with my work with street children is how articulate they are. They often surprise and humble me with how well they can express themselves in narrative. Whilst speaking with Maya, whom I…
Taghreed & the Dream of Citizenship
There was no mistaking the horror this six year old girl was experiencing. Nothing more telling of the fear than the warm yellow fluid running down her short legs as her knees started to visibly shake. There was little mistaking the heartbeats escalate as the quiver of her little lips began. Following her gaze to…
Violence on the Other Side of the Pond; “When I grow up I want to be a policewoman, I want to kill my dad.”
“Break a girl’s rib and she will grow twenty-four.” This is a popular saying between the working class in Egypt. This is often what we are told when we mediate between a street girl and the family whose abuse she has escaped. Hitting a girl is seen to be beneficial to her and a…
Street Children and the Girls who were once loved by God
“Go say hello quickly and bend down to kiss her hand, she’s one of the people that takes care of your daughter”. As soon as the short, fair skinned, green eyed, toothless man with a small white cloth hat fitted tightly on his head, had finished instructing his daughter to hurry towards me, she moved…