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Posted Sunday, Nov. 24, 2002; 2.02 p.m.
GMT
But there is also evidence that such attacks are being mimicked
in more affluent urban settings. Over the past year, nearly
a score of highly publicized gang rapes have been reported
or brought to trial across the country, some involving victims
and perpetrators as young as 11. One 13-year-old girl in northern
France was raped by as many as 88 youths over a four-month
period earlier this year before alerting her parents. In September
in the Paris suburb of Argenteuil, a court sentenced a band
of youths to five to 12 years for repeatedly raping a local
15-year-old girl.
In most cases, the perpetrators don't seem to realize that
they've committed a grievous crime. "They share around
girls the way they do a CD or a sweater," Bellil writes
in her book, a view echoed by Gilbert Collard, a lawyer representing
a gang-rape victim from Orléans. "We've allowed
a subculture to develop with its own codes and references
that have made sexual violence a banality," he says.
Adds Pierre-Olivier Sur, the attorney of the victim in the
Argenteuil trial: "In this case, the attackers had no
consciousness of having broken laws, of having raped a girl.
Not only did they deny any wrongdoing, they accused the victim
of being a slut."
Given these attitudes, women who do take their attackers
to trial face an ordeal in the courtroom. In the Argenteuil
case, the victim had to endure what has come to be a standard
counterattack by defendants: that the attack was consensual
group sex. Others defenses involve arguments that victims'
attire, previous sexual history or even activities like smoking
or dancing were invitations to sex. Such arguments enjoy a
twisted credence among some banlieue residents — and
even in some courtrooms. "People listen more to what
the perpetrators say instead of demanding justice for the
victim," says Bellil.
It's also just one of the many forms of brutality suffered
by banlieue women. Girls and teenage women who rebuff unwanted
advances or defend themselves against suggestive insults are
often beaten, sometimes to death. Last month, a 17-year-old
named Sohane was burned alive outside her Paris banlieue building
in Vitry-sur-Seine by a boyfriend with whom she had broken
off. Just days later, two male teens from a Grenoble banlieue
got 12-year sentences for the Nov. 2000 murder of 15-year-old
Sofiane Allouche, whose throat they cut following a dispute.
"The worst elements of the banlieue today have no respect
for human lives — including their own," says Paris
judge Marc Trevidic, who in the 1990s worked cases in the
banlieues of Nantes. "They make their own rules, and
don't like seeing people — usually girls — living
according to the rules of French society. For many, the slightest
affront is a declaration of war."
Banlieue women must also deal with the spreading influence
of Islamic fundamentalism, which threatens their liberty in
other ways. "Over the past 10 years, the condition of
women in the banlieues has radically deteriorated," says
Fadéla Amara, president of a national association of
banlieue women and head of the "Neither Whores Nor Submissive"
movement, which campaigns for women to be allowed to live
normal, modern lives. "We're seeing increased insults
of young women wearing jeans, a rise in forced or arranged
marriages, more young women obliged to drop out of school
and a greater incidence of polygamy," she says. "There
comes a point when women must say, 'That's enough.'"
Bellil did just that, and the success of her book —
which has so far sold over 30,000 copies — is bringing
the issue to the attention of a wide audience. Despite her
experiences, though, she is not abandoning the banlieues.
She lives and works as an educational aide in a Paris neighborhood
not far from the one in which the attacks occurred. She also
insists that despite all the dire problems and terrible violence
of banlieues, most remain warm and vibrant places. "The
banlieue is like a big family," she writes in the final
chapter of her book, albeit a dysfunctional family and one
with terrible secrets.
To solve their problems, Bellil suggests, male and female,
young and old, banlieue residents must restore mutual respect
and dignity, a process that would be greatly assisted if mainstream
French society treated people from the banlieues with respect
and dignity too. In the end, Bellil's book is a message to
her community. "It's to tell girls that they can survive
and see justice done," she says. "And also to urge
mothers to break with this infernal vicious cycle of the all-powerful
male. It drives me crazy to still hear women say, 'Ah, that
girl went looking for it.'"
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