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Article: A Desperate Chase to Restore Chastity; In Europe, Many Muslim Women Resort to Surgery, Ploys to Meet Family Expectations
- Article from:
- The Washington Post
- Article date:
- July 23, 2006
- Author:
CopyrightThis material is published under license from the Washington Post. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Washington Post. (Hide copyright information)
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Chastity can exact a painful price from young Muslim women, many
of whom are forced into lies or surgery to go to the marriage bed as
virgins.
Hymen repair, fake virginity certificates and other deceptions,
said to be commonplace in some Muslim countries, are practiced in
France and elsewhere in Europe, where Muslim girls are more
emancipated but still live under rigid codes of family honor.
Such ploys have saved many young women from scorn and worse. But
they also clash with the more liberal social mores of France and
other countries in Europe, where some decry them as an attack on
human rights.
The procedures are legal but shrouded in silence -- "something
that passes through ...