Muslim wife abuse and spousal slavery is rampant in Italy

The following TV report from Italy takes a look at what has become an all too familiar phenomenon in the West: the complete segregation and isolation of Muslim women, who live as virtual slaves to their husbands, even after being resident in the country for decades.



Transcript:


00:02 He hit me hard in the face.

00:09 Look… —Signs of dermatological damage.

00:16 My face was white like this.

00:19 Always, always like this.

00:22 Her face still swollen from the blows she received, her frightened look

00:26 from the violence with which her husband beat her last night for the nth time.

00:30 That’s how Bouchra, a young 34-year-old Moroccan woman,

00:34 receives us in a dwelling where she has lived with little Ahmed for about nine months.

00:38 He did like this with my hair, and hit my face like this.

00:43 These are the photos you took yesterday after he beat you? —Yes.

00:50 Why did he beat you?

00:53 Because I…

00:58 wanted to learn Italian.

01:02 I was doing exercises… You were doing exercises in Italian?

01:06 …Italian exercises…

01:09 and my husband arrived…

01:14 and said …

01:17 “Enough”? “Enough,” yes. “I want to eat.”

01:20 For three years, Bouchra has been married an Egyptian man.

01:23 For her to learn our language would mean

01:26 becoming independent and finally succeeding in integrating,

01:29 a process that perhaps for the man who says he loves her is too dangerous.

01:32 Since arriving in Italy, this residence in Milan Province has been her prison.

01:37 You never leave home? —No.

01:40 Never, you live here inside, locked up here inside? —Yes. My husband locks the door.

01:45 Your husband has locked you inside and taken the key? —Yes.

01:50 I prepare meals for the family…

01:55 Do all the housework. Everything.

01:58 I don’t have family here, friends.

02:02 I only have my husband.

02:05 So you only have your husband? —Yes.

02:08 So what can I do? —Now after the nth incident of violence,

02:12 Bouchra finally found the courage to report it.

02:15 She shows us the suitcases she prepared to leave the home

02:18 “Soon,” she tells me, “the Carabinieri will arrive to carry me and my son away.”

02:22 Then at the time of prayer, she lays a small rug on the floor and prays in silence to her God.

02:40 “Good evening, Signora. Are you ready?”

02:45 For a few nights, Bouchra and Ahmed will sleep in a shelter.

02:49 Then, for them a new life begins.

02:53 In Italy, according to the latest report by Caritas Inmigrantes.

02:56 foreign women number about two and a half million.

02:59 And if some of them succeed in integrating and finding work,

03:02 there are many, perhaps, too many, like Bouchra, who live in a world

03:06 made up only of children and home, where the only language spoken

03:09 is that of their country of origin.

03:12 We are in Via Padova, in the quarter considered the multi-ethnic quarter of Milan.

03:17 A long street about five kilometers where thirty-three thousand people live.

03:22 A third of them are foreigners. —Can I ask you where you are from?

03:26 Sorry. I don’t understand. —You don’t speak Italian?

03:29 Not well, very little. I also don’t speak well.

03:32 You don’t speak Italian well? — No, I don’t speak well.

03:35 —Have you been in Italy many years? —Yes. —How long?

03:38 Five. — Five years? —Yes.

03:41 And you speak… —A little. — How many years have you been in Italy?

03:45 Uh, ten years. —Ten years, and you don’t speak Italian?

03:49 No, a little.

03:52 It’s difficult to speak with the women we meet on the street, so we try to go into a kabob shop

03:56 to ask for information. Do you have any women working around here?

04:02 No. —Do you know of any businesses where women are working?

04:07 Look, I don’t know what to say to you.

04:10 And while I was trying to find someone to interview,

04:13 an interesting conversation began about the concept of the woman in the Islamic religion.

04:18 The woman in Islam has to ask permission to go out.

04:23 Do you always know where your wife is? —It’s normal.

04:26 I have the right to know where my wife goes. I have the right

04:29 to say to my wife, I don’t like you to go with this person…

04:32 And you are the guardian? —Yes

04:35 The woman is the master of the house.

04:38 because the woman is the one who in practice manages the whole family.

04:42 She doesn’t work for pay. However, she does other work.

04:48 As a husband, as a father, as a brother,

04:53 let’s say I don’t like it that my women, of my family,

04:56 …are going out and about. —You don’t like it. —As a husband, I don’t share that.

05:01 But how thin is the wall that separates this role as master of the home and a reality

05:05 of isolation and segregation? I ask Maria Teresa, who since 2006,

05:09 fights with the Association in Defense of the Rights of Women.

05:13 You and your association are also occupied with Islamic women.

05:18 What are the grievances and violence most often reported by these women?

05:23 Violence that comes from being mistreated by husbands; many times they keep them at home.

05:27 Many of these women are completely unable to speak Italian,

05:31 That is, to speak our language, in order to create this ultimate segregation.

05:37 Yes, yes. I think they do it to avoid contact with us.

05:42 It has happened that girls who went to university,

05:47 and there was the father who didn’t want his daughter to continue studies.

05:52 He took the books and burned them. Therefore, they are afraid

05:55 she will do too much, learn our language, work…

05:58 These women will manage too much…

06:01 That independence that disturbs their religion.

06:04 For the men, the women must be subjugated to them.