The Caged Virgin - Ayaan Hirsi Ali [54]
The waiting room in the clinic is full of immigrant women. The so-called recovery rooms are also almost exclusively filled with immigrants, mainly from Turkey and Morocco and a few from China. The girl for whom I am interpreting is asked the same questions as before and she is encouraged to think carefully about her decision. Asked whether she would like the father to be present, she replies, “No, he gave me his word that he wouldn’t penetrate me, but he did. I don’t want him involved.”
She demands that her stitches not be damaged by the abortion. They must absolutely remain intact. The doctor examines the stitches and says he will have to take them out. “In that case I want you to put new stitches in after the abortion,” she demands, and proceeds to have the abortion.
After the abortion the girl is told that she will have to recover first and can come back at a later date for the stitches. Presumably this never happened, since Dutch doctors will now replace these kinds of stitches. But to have the stitches replaced; she might have traveled to Italy or the United Kingdom, where doctors are known to do this.
THE DUTCH SOCIAL security system is not very well set up for the problems of Muslims. This inadvertently contributes to perpetuating the situation and keeps everyone locked in the virgins’ cage. Dutch psychologists are, quite rightly, used to treating their patients as individuals. In my interpreting days I witnessed how they also used this approach with Muslim women. An important question was always: “What would you like yourself?” Many women simply did not know. They would sit, quiet as a mouse, and shrug their shoulders. “What my husband wants,” they might say timidly, or “As Allah wishes.” And there were even women who would answer: “Whatever you think is right.” They had never learned to want anything for themselves. “What would you like for your children? What decision would you like to take for them?” They had not learned this either, so did not know how to answer. The social workers did not understand them; they were puzzled and frustrated. As a last resort they referred these women to other agencies, but there is a limit to how often this can be done.
There is a new branch within the world of aid agencies known as “intercultural welfare” (or something similarly ugly). It offers separate help to, for example, Muslim women who have suffered abuse. One example is the Saadet Shelter in Rotterdam. The women who end up there do not learn how to become more resilient and independent. No, assertiveness training is only given to native Dutch victims of abuse. The preferred solution for immigrant women is “mediation” between the victim, her family, and her husband. This common attitude of the aid agencies is based on the advice of countless organizations set up for the benefit of the immigrant population, some ethnic in origin, others religious. The spokespeople for these organizations, which are subsidized by the government, tend to be men and occasionally women who for one reason or another wish to maintain the status quo.
Eleven
How to Deal with Domestic Violence More Effectively
An average of eighty women, forty children, and twenty-five men die each year in the Netherlands as a result of domestic violence, but the government has no proper answer to the problem. If the domestic violence takes place among people from a “different culture,” the authorities are extra reluctant to intervene, and clear