'You can never be strong enough'

       17 - 23 March 2005
      Issue No. 734
      Living  
       
      Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 





http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2005/734/li1.htm

        'You can never be strong enough'
        As the number of single mothers continues to rise, Serene Assir listens 
to accounts of tragedy, hope and heroism 

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               Click to view caption 
              Dina Sarhan explaining the fine points of cooking 
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        Egyptian tradition is such that few things are worse than being a 
single woman -- except, perhaps, being a single mother. And though cases of 
unmarried women single-handedly raising children remain rare in Egypt, those of 
divorced or widowed women bearing the economic, social and emotional brunt of 
parenthood are countless. Many take on the role of both parents while the 
father moves in with a second wife, serves a prison sentence, works abroad or 
completes up to three years of military draft. 

        "Problems are particularly acute in the case of women raising children 
in economically depressed areas," Mona Shadi, programme coordinator for the 
Association for the Development and Enhancement of Women (ADEW) told Al-Ahram 
Weekly. "The women we reach out to often lack all the basic guarantees to which 
the state entitles them. Many cannot read or write, many others lack identity 
cards since they are registered under the name of their former husbands, and 
thus they have no access at all to the authorities -- never mind the ability to 
seek help."

        "This world is a dirty place," 23-year-old Ashraqat, mother of Shurouq, 
says with a mixture of fervour and despair. Ashraqat discovered she was 
pregnant one month after signing her divorce papers, following a brief but 
abusive stint of wedlock, during which her husband took advantage of her 
economically even as he forced social restrictions on her. Now, she lives in 
Cairo, having left her native village of Bilbis in the Sharqiya district, but 
earns her living as a belly dancer in Hurghada nightclubs, where she can work 
without the necessary documentation. 

        "I remember when he used to promise me we would make our dreams come 
true," she told the Weekly. "Now I know the truth." (While we have this 
conversation in a traditional coffee house, the owner shakes his head at me 
disapprovingly, walking by; later he tells me off for sitting with someone so 
"low").

        Ashraqat went to school up to the age of 14, and was dancing 
professionally by 15. The man she loved came from a better-off family, so when 
she was married she imagined she would no longer have to dance (or otherwise 
employ her body) to make a living. "But my husband would bring clients into the 
house, then take the money afterwards. I had everything I could possibly want, 
I even had a really nice mobile phone, but he took control of my life and made 
me do things I didn't want to do. 

        "By the time I discovered I was pregnant it was too late. When I told 
my mother, she beat me -- she'd been against the marriage since the beginning. 
But she was to forgive me later on, and now she helps me. My father, well -- he 
treats me and my daughter like strangers. That's okay. I don't need anyone, I 
can manage without. Now you ask me whether I'd do it all over again? No. I'd 
marry the person my parents choose, someone with money. It wouldn't matter 
whether I loved him or not. This is no life..."

        This bitterness, the sense of being excluded, Shadi explains, tend to 
be incorporated into the way single mothers bring up their daughters -- an 
added problem. As if to confirm this, Ashraqat explains that "what I teach my 
daughter is this: If someone picks on you, hit him. You can never be strong 
enough." ADEW seeks to address this issue by holding programmes for children as 
well as mothers, Shadi goes on to point out: "We frequently succeed, but just 
as frequently we fail." 

        Ashraqat's experience, though an extreme example, remains broadly 
relevant. "As a divorcée," she explains, "I am desired by many men, because 
they know that I am not a virgin, and as a result they think I'm an easy 
target. But everything I do," she pleads, "I swear, though I know dancing is 
sinful -- I do it for Shurouq, so that when she grows up she has all the things 
that I didn't have. I love her..."

        Such an attitude of self-sacrifice is seen across the board. It may be 
innate in all mothers, but it stands out with particular force in those who 
undergo the most painful trials. "When the children's father passed away," Um 
Sherif, 67, tells the Weekly, "my life was already difficult enough. God, I had 
14 children to take care of!" Eight were hers, the rest her husband's -- by his 
first wife. "The youngest was just two years old. Now," she says, "they all 
have homes of their own, and they are all happy."

        Um Sherif lives in a semi-agricultural area deep within one of Cairo's 
poorer districts. She can neither read nor write, but three of her sons are 
electronic engineers in the Gulf, and two work in respectable businesses in 
Cairo. 

        Hers is an impressive case: She fought against all odds to raise her 
children, and she managed extraordinarily well. A strong woman, she is proud of 
her achievements. "I never accepted help from anyone. I knew that if my 
children were to be happy, I would have to do it all by myself. I thought of 
remarrying, but when I saw how prospective husbands would seek to interfere in 
the upbringing of my children, I decided against it." 

        But according to social perceptions, it is a misfortune for a woman to 
remain unmarried. "Yes dear," Um Sherif says, defiantly, "but if you listen to 
what people say, you'll find it impossible to breathe. I learned this very 
early on in life. People love to interfere, but in order to survive you must do 
what you feel is right." 

        That said, social prejudice cannot be ignored as a negative factor in 
the lives of single mothers. "My sister is a teacher," Mervat told the Weekly, 
"and has always been well-to-do. She divorced her husband following an unhappy 
marriage, and brought up her son and daughter comfortably, without experiencing 
pressure from anyone. It was her son who turned against her in the end -- once 
he married, he started despising her, cursing the fact that she chose to live 
independently." 

        Yet the principal problem seems to stem from an area beyond the social, 
strictly speaking. A woman raising children on her own is a woman without 
support in Egypt, and though this is increasingly acceptable at the social 
level -- women gain in respect, particularly, as they grow older -- 
bureaucratic issues stand in the way of true emancipation. Tasks as banal as 
renting a flat become a problem because business deals are usually made with 
men. Registering a child under the mother's name remains legally impossible.

        "And now," Ashraqat says, about to set out for Hurghada, "I've got to 
make sure I'm ready for the big lie: When the policeman wakes me up while we're 
on the bus to ask for my ID, I'm just going to have to pretend I'm too 
exhausted to fetch it. And as I'm not wearing any makeup, he'll hopefully be 
taken in by the innocence of my expression. Let's just pray he'll leave me 
alone." 

        Shurouq looks beautiful in the photographs Ashraqat shows me. To this 
day, without an ID card, the mother is fighting out the case for the custody of 
her child. 
     
     



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