Serene Assir talks love, relationships and children with Cairo's young women With the release in Egypt of Hollywood film Juno, which centres on the unwanted pregnancy of a 16- year-old girl, the topic of relationships and having children at a young age struck an odd chord. Among other themes, the film discusses the main character's feelings of being too young to raise a child and yet her reluctance to give it up for adoption. "In the US, for instance, the phenomenon of unwanted pregnancies among teenagers has become pervasive," said 19-year-old university student, Noura (last name undisclosed). "Here in Egypt, girls do have children early -- and it's not seen as a bad thing. Of course the difference is, though, that they are married when they do." Nineteen-year-old Reda Abdullah has two young children. She lives in Giza's Shabramant village with her husband. Although they are not wealthy, she is happy with her lot and feels blessed for having a good family. Her husband, she says, wants to have more children. "I don't mind that we don't have security, but the prices are shooting up so fast in Egypt that I know that if we have more children, I won't be able to afford taking care of them properly," Abdullah says. "My husband and I never learned how to read properly -- this is not the life I want for my children. So I insist on postponing a new pregnancy for some time." Considering her young age, this young mother is strong enough to make decisions for her family that she believes are beneficial for all. "I know I'm young, but it may be because I am young that I know what is best for my children," she says. Abdullah adds that compared to other girls she knew while growing up, she was among the first to marry and have children. However, she does not feel that having children at a young age has been any more of a burden on her than it would have been had she decided to have children later. "It's not easy, I suppose, however young or old a girl is," she says. To Noura, the question of age is a tricky one. "I don't think that it matters so much when a girl decides to marry and have children," she said. "Girls are, after all, more mature than boys when we're in our late teens." But with marriage and parenting ages generally rising in Egypt, what is more common, particularly on university campuses, is the phenomenon of urfi, or secret marriages. There is controversy over whether such marriages are religiously sanctioned and the degree of shame attached to them remains high in Egyptian society. "In Egypt, honour continues to play an important role in society, so even if some of the girls on campus may have had relations with boys before, they would never openly admit it," said Noura. The few who might have to, are the cities' least favoured in many ways: street children. Among them is Maryam (not her real name), who gave birth to a child fathered by a person whom she referred to as "the love of my life. He's dead now, though. He was killed in a street fight, stabbed to death with a knife." Her son, not yet a year old, is what keeps her grounded. The harshness of her life on the street gave her voice a rough tone. However, when she speaks of her child, and the loss of the child's father, her weakness shows. "I want my son to grow up to be a doctor. I will give him all I can to help him lead a good life. God help me show him that, in spite of the fact that I never married his father, he can love me nevertheless, and that he need not be ashamed," Maryam says, burying her face into her hands. The extent to which notions of social propriety and love are linked, however, is unclear. Sarah Maged, a Cairo-based marketing expert, took a somewhat more critical view on lumping together concepts of marriage, children and extra- marital relationships into one. Taking the film Juno as a starting point, 24-year-old Maged denied that the issues it raises are, on the face of it, so alien to young Egyptians' understanding. "People talk about this kind of issue all the time," she says. "And I don't think that's a bad thing at all. If you look at the message of the film, it isn't exactly advocating teenage pregnancy. On the contrary, it shows the difficulty involved quite clearly." Perhaps the key difference, Maged added, between the film and reality in Egypt, is the nonchalance displayed by the teenager's parents when she breaks the news of her pregnancy to them. "All kinds of things happen in every society. What is the purpose of comparing? However, I can almost guarantee that no Egyptian family would react like Juno's parents did," she said.
