Monday, January 30, 2012

Inside the Walls


Inside the Walls
Approaching the Islaheya’s front gate one gets the impression of its being merely another building in another of Cairo’s crowded residential areas.  Agouza is just that, crowded, residential, a few shops nearby, the streets none too clean amid the regular dust and dirt common to Cairo.  A gate, a guard, dark red brick on the buildings façade, the only sign distinguishing the Islaheya from other homes is the sign over the gate which reads Moasaffet el Agouza which roughly translates to mean a school or place for education in Agouza, one of Cairo’s more central, populous and very busy suburbs.  The term Islaheya is not used.  Islaheya connotes something very negative, rather than education, it refers to a ‘fix-it’ place, implying something is wrong with the residents inside.  Advertising flaws to the outside world creates just the sort of image authorities wish to hide. 
A tour of the facilities is essential when attempting to comprehend what Il Binait Dol undergo on a daily basis.  Keep in mind too that the Agouza facility or school has had the benefit of Hanna’s Social Committee for the past fifteen years, without which there is no saying what level of defenestration might greet the unsuspecting visitor.  Straightaway a visitor will see a wall painted brightly in a sort of modern art, graffiti style.  DEO students helped paint this to brighten up the entrance of a wall otherwise grim and grey.  To the right stand the remains of a garden patch also donated and put in by DEO students and volunteers.  Unfortunately left to itself, the garden with the exception of a few hardy plants, died through disrepair and neglect by the Islaheya staff.  Forbidden to go to the patch, the Islaheya girls were helpless to keep their tiny parcel of green alive.  Even if they had right of access, gardening or garden tools have never been part of their learning. 
Once past the outside entrance gate, the visitor comes to the main hallway which leads to all rooms, sleeping quarters, classroom, kitchen, toilet areas, and shower rooms.  What meets the eye immediately are dirt encrusted walls, floors, chipped plaster, peeling paint, and worst of all mold and damp everywhere.  It drips from the ceilings, creeps into the wall crevices, the cracks, some large enough for a small fist, are covered in mildew.  The keepers attempt to keep any visitor away from the kitchen but I managed to go past and even take a partial picture.  Inside the door sits in broken and dirty tiles, is an old bathtub which is used to soak beans for foul and tamaya.  When and how often this tub gets cleaned is not something to ask, suffice it that the tile stains have caked on dirt, a layer of dust and food crumbs cover the kitchen floor, and the few girls working in the kitchen do not wear kitchen gloves, have their hands in the food as they work at the only ‘job’ allowed, cooking for other Islaheyas for which they earn a few Egyptian pounds per month.  Not all girls receive this privilege, only the ones who have learned to play the game and curry favour of those in charge.
As the kitchen stands in the first floor, ascending the stairs to the second floor brings its own drama of odor, filth, and worst of all chains, gates locked against escape, and other indignities which the girls live through daily.  On my last visit to the Islaheya in May, the keepers almost refused our admittance, claiming that because it was Friday, the girls rested and had no time for visitors.  As we all knew this attempt to keep us out stemmed from lies, we insisted and finally they allowed us to visit with a select fifteen girls.  Their major concern is that visitors might meet with girls kept locked behind bars and gates.  Those girls, desperate to escape their moldy prison, beseech any visitors as they put hands through the bars, begging for any small attention. 
A description alone of the Islaheya facility only touches the surface of the lives which the girls must endure.  Take Sally’s[1] short life for example.  She’s twelve now, four years ago her mother put her out of the family car in the middle of Cairo’s streets.  There has never been any explanation for her mother’s behavior; she never made any attempt to find her daughter.  Sally thinks she lived on the street for about a year, long months alone, stealing bread and anything else which came her way.  By the time Sally made it to the Islaheya she had become involved in a street gang whose leaders forced her to sell on the streets.  They also got her addicted to drugs which made her more compliant.  At the Islaheya Sally initially tried to run, for her, after a year living in relative freedom, albeit under horrific conditions, imprisonment behind gates with guards and madams imposing their will was intolerable.  The physical withdrawal from the daily dose of drugs was sometimes violent, at all times riddling her young body with excruciating pain.  As a result, she slipped into extreme antisocial behavior, incurred the wrath of authorities, and ridicule of the other girls, who began to call her crazy, in spite of the fact that many of these girls too went through drug withdrawals. 
Locked in a small cell without help, without toilet facilities, and with minimal ventilation, Sally eventually, after many weeks, joined the general population.  The other girls still stigmatized her as mezhnuun [crazy], Sally remained isolated, had no friends, and no possibility of relief from the terror of Islaheya living.  One of the keepers finally took pity on the young girl, only nine years old, helping Sally to adopt acceptable attitudes to make her life more tolerable.  Gradually the young girl learned the ropes, made one or two friends, most of the girls still fear her a bit, after three years as inmates, possibly because Sally occasionally gives way to uncontrollable rages.  Whether this comes from fear, terror of her own life, remnant of drug abuse, or sheer panic, no one can tell as Sally has never seen a doctor or any other medical person since being in the Islaheya.  Medical care in the Islaheya is nominal at best.  What Sally did learn was how to earn privileges, one of which is the right to be educated.  Through that means my students learned her story, otherwise she along with eighty percent of the girls remains buried alive behind the gates and bars of the Islaheya, coming to light once or twice a year when Hanna convinces the authorities to allow the girls a Ramadan Iftar[2] at the Egyptian Rowing Club, a short open cruise on the Nile, or the excursion to Ra Sidr, inexplicably cancelled for this year by the authorities.[3]
Without Hanna or my students or even my own visits to the Islaheya life inside would remain a mystery.  If girls leave through legitimate means, marriage or family reclamation, they keep silent about the abuses and tragedies inside.  If girls escape, to whom can they report the maltreatment which they receive?  First, authorities refuse to investigate, they choose not to believe these street children, children whose own families either disown them or from whom they have run away. 
Behind the moldy walls many secrets exist which the keepers wish keeps hidden from the outside world.  Their domain, their rules, their wards.  The girls quickly learn how to curry favour with supervisors, which one can they work to get privileges, with whom can they sell sex for an illicit night on the streets, who will listen to stories about others in exchange for an illegal cigarette, a phone call, an extra ration of food. 
Il Binait Dol, those girls, quickly learn the system, how to behave in front of supervisors.  For them it’s survival, and the only way they know how is through telling tales of fellow inmates, some of the supervisors, with nothing much to do all day, appear to enjoy scandalous stories and quickly mete out punishment whether deserved or not.  They slap the girls for swearing; they kick the girls if they get into a physical fight, if a girl attempts to run away, she is chained to a bed in an isolated room for any amount of time, even up to a month in one case which we heard about through reliable sources.  Alongside this punishment they have daily religious lectures and praying times are encouraged but not enforced.  Seeing no incongruity between their religious instruction and treatment meted out, the girls grow up as nominal Muslims, Muslim by birth and sketchy training, but a sense of religion or even spirituality evades them.  It’s no wonder since the treatment they receive is certainly at variance with the readings they hear. 
This girl’s story did not come from one of the inmates, but from someone whose career there would end if her name were disclosed.[4]  After attempting an escape, one girl was returned to the Islaheya in Agouza where she received brutal treatment.  Chained to her bed in an isolated room for a month, the girl had only a bucket which she later had to empty and clean herself.  During the day, one dish of foul was placed in her room along with one cup of water.  She lived in unbearable stench, daily increasing the possibility of disease, and even death, but she was finally released into the general population of girls.  Her previous punishment did not prevent her from trying to escape again.  Once again, the authorities caught her and brought her back to Agouza.  The supervisors, not satisfied with merely chaining the girl to a bed, they beat her with those same chains first and then incarcerated her for yet another month at the end of which time they shipped her off to one of the Islaheyas in the Sinai, far from Cairo or anyone she might know in the city, to an Islaheya with a reputation as a virtual prison.  None of the girls have heard from or about her since her removal.
When there is a general punishment, the girls cannot remove beyond the locked and gated bars on the second floor where their dormitories are located.  Sometimes, if the girls attempt a general disturbance, the supervisors will cane the girls, especially those they believe leaders, then they declare a general lock-up, usually for a day or two, sometimes a week.  During that time, none of the girls are allowed out; schooling, any fresh air for the few permitted to be in the courtyard, and certainly no outside visitors, other than authorities, may enter the Islaheya. 
Hamda told us her story, a short and very painful one.  Now fifteen, she first came to the Islaheya at eight.  This time, her mother brought her, left her with the madams because she had too many children at home, a husband who divorced her, leaving her no choice but to bring her eldest daughter to the Islaheya.  Hamda’s mother has never come to see her nor did she express any desire to reclaim her daughter.  Though she had no direct contact with the police, Hamda does have a record; her name must be written down on the official books in order for the Director to allow her to stay.  Hamda recalls, although years after the fact, that the madam, at the time Madam Ibtisam, locked her in a small room, again the excuse she gives to ensure that Hamda would be staying in Agouza.  Given three meals and let out for bathroom privileges, the frightened eight year old had no clue what was happening, only that she wanted to go home, to her mother, brothers and sisters.  She thinks two brothers and two sisters, but cannot be certain.  Her all night crying provoked the supervisors to anger and the next few days began her torment, beating first with sticks, then a cable, food only once a day, finally Hamda learned the trick, no crying, no beating, and more food.  Eventually word came she was to stay in Agouza so Hamda became part of the general population of girls.  The dormitories consist of between twenty and twenty-five beds, when Hamda came, not all girls had their own mattress and were forced to share, which situation fell to Hamda’s lot.  Then the lesbian activity for Hamda began.  Clinging to her bed partner for warmth and comfort, the young girls have no notion of their own bodies, bodily functions, or sexuality; they explore each other’s bodies, and begin to feel a certain comfort, perhaps even pleasure in their mutual exploration.  Receiving instruction in the Qu’ran on a daily basis, all the girls instinctively know that physical contact like this is punishable if caught, so they attempt to keep this part of their lives secret.  Many girls, all ages, will sneak into other’s beds not for comfort, but either to force sexual relations on girls, usually older to younger, or to engage in lesbian sex. 
The girls receive no education on sexuality, they merely learn it is haram, in many ways making it more enticing for the girls to practice, in spite of the sever punishments they receive when caught.  If not able to be with a partner, the girls begin masturbation at young ages, also severely punished if caught.  The Islamic belief that masturbation and same sex relationships are seen as abnormal and certainly haram is evident in that they learn early not to get caught, sneak at night or anytime when the supervisors are otherwise engaged.  Most of the girls, not allowed to attend school, locked in the upper rooms, have so little to occupy them that becoming part of a gang, practicing illicit acts, and exerting power over girls selected as more model residents, becomes the norm.  So as in most institutions a gang rises to the top, a gang of girls who often terrorize others, less capable of fending off those who violate their youth. 
In another part of Cairo, not too far from Cairo University, sits another Islaheya.  This one provides homes for street boys, boys in circumstances similar to the girls.  They have been abandoned, run away from home, orphaned left to fend for themselves; eventually captured and brought to the Islaheya by the police.  There the similarity ends.  Home to over 300 boys at any given time, the boys receive entirely different treatment, a helpful reception awaits them on their entry into the Islaheya, and they receive instructions from supervisors, immediately given their own well-cared for bed, properly cleaned linens and coverings.  From the start, the space is private and personal; no one has the right to interfere.  Each bed is margined off with a small shelf, place for personal items and books.  The Islaheya entrance hosts a large working fountain and is surrounded by green gardens, grounds well-kept, manicured, flowers, shrubs, a tiny oasis inside Cairo’s smog and pollution.  No rubbish can be detected in the car park, inside the entry, proper offices house the director, his staff, secretaries, and other workers who keep this Islaheya running. 
Once inside, the Islaheya has a section with proper classrooms for primary school children.  I visited the classes, the boys, all in school uniforms, attended classes provided with desks, books, writing materials, and government trained teachers.  They would all be able to take the government exams, the Adadaya after passing grade six and then those interested could choose to go outside to higher education, or if not interested in academic training they would be sent to various apprenticeships. 
Ashraf, now ten, was only five when we first met him.  My male students, who did their practical experience at this Islaheya, enjoyed his company.  One of the youngest children there, he wasn’t sure how he got there, but has no contact with any family outside the Islaheya walls.  Although young, his very intelligence made him rather a favorite among all the Islaheya boys, he was full of fun, was well looked after, and had found a secure home after wandering Cairo’s streets.  He was brought by the police to the Islaheya as an orphan, a street child, so he does have a record and like many of the other boys, no identity other than his first name.  But in the Islaheya he found acceptance from the older boys, became a kind of mascot to the older boys.  They cared for him, made sure he escaped punishment for some of his boyish pranks; generally saw that no harm came to him.  For the most part, the boys protect one another; feel secure in the knowledge that even though they are in custody until the age of eighteen, they have an educational programme which provides them a way out.  Literacy, training, and apprenticeships form their daily lives.
As part of our visits to this Islaheya, the Director spoke with all of us whenever we needed information.  This openness differed from the secrecy we found at the Agouza Islaheya.  The Directors there had no secretarial staff; no offices with phones and assistants, or apparent interest in seeing the girls receive the best the government can provide.  Mr Ashraf, the director at the time for the boys’ Islaheya, made sure that not only were the boys educated, but that they had clean facilities, three good meals a day plus snacks, a library in which they can sit and work.  A sense of well-being, order, and purpose permeates the boys and the atmosphere of their Islaheya.
In addition to their education and other homelike care, the boys have large well-kept grounds, inclusive of playing fields, basketball court, and an area for football.  The boys are not confined to their rooms, not chained to their beds, nor are they locked in small holding rooms.  This is not to say they do not receive punishment, for the rules there are strictly enforced.  Rough language, contraband of any kind, attempting to escape, lying, and other forms of illicit behavior are most certainly punished.  But the boys feel much more content, knowing they will become viable and valuable members of the greater community. 
Marriage virtually provides the only way out for the girls, but for them to find a marriage partner when they cannot leave the Islaheya, when they are marked with a police record, and worst than all, most have no family or family identity.  Who will marry the girls?  Marriage is also an important aspect of life for the boys.  They all want to have families, especially children which are an intrinsic part of Egyptian life, but they wish to marry girls who have families with respectable prospects.  Costs for marriage mount high and poor boys from the Islaheya must work hard to even come close to raising enough money to provide a simple flat plus wedding gift for their prospective brides.  When my students asked the boys at the Islaheya if they would ever consider marrying an Islaheya girl, the response without exception was no.  To these boys marriage to a girl from the Islaheya would do nothing but keep them in the lowest element of society, these prison girls, these Islaheya girls are not virgins, one the most significant facets for acceptable marriage in the Muslim world; they had no real identity, even if they have family, family shunned them, they have no money, no ability to gain possessions, and virtually no education, with a few exceptions.
Another comparison between two similarly aged Islaheya residents, one boy Ahmed, one girl Hosna demonstrates how the underlying conditions within the Islaheya make a difference in attitudes of the children.  Ahmed, aged fifteen, came to the Islaheya four years earlier because of what he called ‘private problems’.  My male students dug a bit deeper and the extent of the private problems was rape by uncles and cousins and beatings by step-father.  Unable to sustain life in this environment, Ahmed ran away soon to be caught by the police.  After bringing him to the Islaheya, he had a few difficulties, in particular with the director Mr Ashraf.  Although Mr Ashraf ran a very clean and tidy Islaheya, if the boys became a bit rebellious or even demonstrated the least tendency to disobey, he himself would be the boys.  He did not leave this gruesome task to others in order to instill a fear and perhaps respect for his authority, Mr Ashraf took this charge.  Initially Ahmed suffered many beatings, but then began to realize the benefits to living in the Islaheya.  He had a clean area all to himself for sleeping, school and school uniforms, good food, a healthy outdoors environment with a weekly sports teacher provided by Mr Ashraf’s management of their budget.  As he settled in to a routine, he developed one or two close friends, not many, as he still had and has issues of trust, and his ambition now is to attend and finish high school with the object of getting a good job and eventually marry a girl from the outside.  He is well-fed, given clean clothes daily, has a clean and relatively safe environment in which to live.  The safety of his environment must be qualified as there are some boys in the Islaheya, just like the girls, who refuse to submit to order and discipline, break the rules and threaten some of the boys who comply with Islaheya rules.
In contrast Hosna, aged seventeen, came to the Islaheya five years ago after her mother threw her out of the home.  She is frightened all the time, especially small for her age, has only one friend, many enemies within the Islaheya, has been raped by other girls at night who sneak into her bed and force themselves on her, she has been beaten both at home and in the Islaheya.  The extent of her ambition – none and her sole source of entertainment is a gambling stick throwing game called Tobba.  It might be added that Ahmed’s chief source of entertainment is the Internet.  At the boys institution, internet and computers are made available for all the children, whereas, the girls have no internet and only one communal television supplied by Hanna, with limited viewing privileges for selected girls.
The severest treatment for the girls comes from women, women in authority; and in the case of the Ministry of Social Affairs for the Agouza Islaheya a woman in also in charge.  The harshest decrees for the girls’ management come directly from women in authority.  Islaheya supervisors, all women, waste no time or sympathy on the girls.  A marked contrast too with Madam Nadia in Dubai, where all the children whether handicapped or street children, refer to her as ‘mom’.  If any gets into trouble while in school, they say they must call their mother, meaning Madam Nadia. 
In Agouza, Madame Merwette, the current director, vetoes any outings, privileges, sometimes cancels the real school for the fifteen eligible girls for her own reasons.  She refuses visitors entrance, visitors from the DEO who come once a week to engage the children in games or play in their meager courtyard.  In this she is seconded by the other directors, Madam Zeinab and Madam Naglaa who comes in the afternoons.  Madam Naglaa wishes to restrict the girls even further by insisting that Hanna supply galabeyas rather than the regular clothes worn by the girls and donated by DEO students and other friends of the Social Committee.  Egypt does not have a dress code for its women; they freely choose the style of clothing they wish to wear.  If wearing the tradition galabeya is their choice, if covering their hair with the ejab is what they wish, then this is personal, not enforced.  Hanna decidedly refused to fall in with Madam Naglaa’s request, not on religious grounds, but because it must be the girls’ choice, the Islaheya has no rules to the contrary, and she believed the girls restricted enough, choosing clothes, however slim the choices or how used the clothing, gives the girls one tiny sense of humanity, garners them one speck of self-respect as an individual.  No such demand was put on the boys either by Mr Ashraf in the past or by Mr Yasser, its current director.  In fact Mr Yasser turned down Hanna’s offer of virtually brand new dress suits when a family friend died and his widow offered them to the Social Committee.  Mr Yasser’s reply was that his boys did not wear used clothing, they had no need, and the matter closed, Hanna gave the clothes to residents of Abu Zabel who definitely have need.
Inside its moldy walls and cracking ceilings, the girls waste the minutes, hours, days, months, and years wishing their lives away.  With little or nothing to do, fights develop, enemies are made, friendships breakup, humiliation from the keepers and directors, often beatings occur.  Much of this behavior develops because the girls sit and pace in fear.  Not always fear of someone, but of the unknown.  What will happen to them, where will they be in the ten, fifteen years allotted to them in the Islaheya?  Or will they end up like Zeina.  At fifty-six she is the oldest and longest resident – she came at four and has known nothing else since.  Simple, uneducated, her speech is slurred, but she has a smile for everyone who comes to visit.  One can find her sitting on the cement curbing just inside the Islaheya gates, just sitting, nothing else, barely moving.  Her clothes never change, and her hair is only washed occasionally when she allows someone from the Social Committee visitors to do this for her.  The girls all know her; perhaps she is their greatest fear although they do not know how to voice this idea.  They see her sitting, she does no crafts, her simplicity grows with the passing of each year, is this them in fifteen or twenty years. 
My students asked these girls what are their hopes and dreams.  Virtually all say marriage, as they know it is the only way out for them.  They want a home and of course with this come the obligation of children which the girls see as security.  With a child in tow, a man might not divorce her or leave her destitute.  Not thinking back to their own beginnings, usually the result of a man leaving their mother, leaving a mother destitute with several mouths to feed, or a man who has taken a new wife who refuses to take another woman’s daughter in to her home.  From where do they hope to get their bridegrooms?  Some girls continue to sneak out at night meeting up with old street gang comrades, they believe this will answer.  But in truth these boys only use them for sex but when the girls get back to the Islaheya they believe it’s love.  Only the few fortunate like Mona have a fighting chance.  Other girls have left the Islaheya through marriage; sometimes a family member on the outside feels sympathy and arranges a marriage.  Jumping at any opportunity to leave, a girl accepts.  What happens to her afterwards is difficult to tell, the girls do not return to the Islaheya even for a visit, this part of their life they must put behind, never to come back, never to visit.  If a girl has no family, no name, what can she do?  Even if the authorities identify her birth records, it’s unlikely that family will merely emerge to bring along a prospective husband.  Additionally, not many men want girls from the Islaheya.  It is the rare man who is willing to risk his future with a wife from the lowest part of society and even if he does wish to marry her, the girl must pass his family’s approval, in particular that of his mother, as she will be the one most closely associated with his new wife.  Egyptian mothers-in-law have notorious reputations for interference, for badgering the new wife, and for making her life a living hell.  It takes an unusual girl to trade one form of punishment and captivity for another. 
Captivity comes well in to the equation because in the Egyptian households, even though the civil law gives women freedom, civil law is miles distant from actual practice.  What other alternatives offer Il Binait Dol?  When they reach twenty-one, they can leave the Islaheya but where will they go, what can they do?  If they have received the minimal education, passing their Adadaya exams, this still leaves them floundering.  Training for work beyond making a few pots and weaving a few simple bags is virtually non-existent in the Islaheya.  They have no notion of housework, so they cannot hire themselves out as cleaners, most of the girls cannot cook, only a few gained the right to work in the kitchen and then the majority of the food was foul and sometimes tamaya[5]  If they cooked for wealthy people, their skills must surpass simple Egyptian fare they’ve eaten and prepared in the Islaheya.  For this, they have no training.  Additionally, most families refuse employment to girls from their backgrounds, police records stay stuck to them throughout their lives.  In spite of the education which a few select girls receive from the attentive instruction and care from Hanna’s teachers Madams Hala, Wafaa, Heba, and Ingy, employment will be difficult, police records notwithstanding.  Employment in Egypt is now and has been for quite a while is at a low ebb, when University graduates who become teachers only earn £300 Egyptian to start, what can minimally educated girls with police records and Islaheya attached to their names, hope to achieve?  If they had the opportunity to serve apprenticeships as housemaids, cooks, or shop assistants then perhaps they might work on the outside, but as it stands, their potential for earning independent wages and starting out is virtually non-existent.
Il Binait Dol often lash out in frustration, especially the older girls, they know their time is ending at the Islaheya, where in spite of the conditions, they have a place to sleep which is not on the streets and have three meals a day, regardless of how meager and uninteresting.  Walls crack around them, ceilings leak dirty water, pipes break, the toilet is filthy, and showers are rare, but they do not have to wander the streets, they do not have to put their hands out for a crust of bread or a piaster, they do not have to steal, but they do have to worry about tomorrow, because for them it does come and often comes too soon.  In spite of attempts to run away, when they can take their freedom and walk out the front gate, past the guards many of whom have used them for sex, what is their direction, where can they go?  One sure option is back on the streets but if and when caught, they will not see the inside of an ill-kept Islaheya again; they will see the devastating walls and gates of an Egyptian prison for women.


[1] Sally is not a common name in the Arab world, but many Egyptian women are given this name.
[2] During the fasting month of Ramadan, no food, water, cigarettes, or other pleasures are allowed.  Iftar actually means breakfast; this is the first meal after sundown, partaken of by all fasting Muslims and is generally the signal for an entire night of eating and drinking [non-alcohol] until sunrise when the fasting cycle begins again.  The original idea behind Ramadan was to develop compassion for the poor who had little food or drink at any time.
[3] As discussed in the previous chapter, Hanna’s Social Committee raises the money and arranges all these outside activities.
[4] This was not the girl’s first attempt at running away; each time the punishment gets more stringent.
[5] Foul and tamaya are made from beans soaked for hours and then the foul is eaten as beans with olive oil and sometimes Egyptian white goat or sheep cheese.  Tamaya is also made from the same beans but crushed into a paste, rolled and then deep-fried.  Along with Mashi, cucumbers and corgettes stuffed with rice and sometimes ground meet, these foods comprise a substantial part of the traditional Egyptian diet.

No comments:

Post a Comment