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Article: `Mafia Woman' Now a Partner in Crime
- Article from:
- Chicago Sun-Times
- Article date:
- May 1, 1996
- Author:
CopyrightCopyright 1996 Chicago Sun-Times. (Hide copyright information)
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PALERMO, Sicily The Mafia kept her back in the shadows and away
from its secrets. If she knew, she didn't tell. She washed clothes
bloodied by killings and bore the next generation of killers.
For centuries, the "Mafia Woman" - wife, mother, sister - knew
her place.
But the Mafia's world is changing, and so are its women.
Often it is the Mafiosi's women who are giving their men the
courage to break with the mob and confess crimes to investigators.
The swelling numbers of turncoats - a development unthinkable barely
a decade ago - have proved a key weapon in the state's uphill war
against organized crime.
Still, though some women repudiate the Mafia way of violence and
vendetta, others ...