Do They Hear You When You Cry

by Fauziya Kassindja, Layli Miller Bashir, Fauziya Kasinga

Book Overview

For Fauziya Kassindja, an idyllic childhood in Togo, West Africa, sheltered from the tribal practices of polygamy and genital mutilation, ended with her beloved father's sudden death. Forced into an... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0385319940
• ISBN13: 9780385319942
• Release Date: January 1999
• Publisher: Bantam Dell
• Length: 544 Pages
• Weight: 0.05 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.3" x 5.1" x 7.9"

Customer Reviews

Excellent Biography of a special young woman from Togo

This book is very interesting and written in perfect German. The woman Fauziya tells her horrible story of a forced marriage to a 30 year older man and the fear of be mutilated (german: beschnitten) on her vagina. This procedure is a custom in some tribes in Africa and other Middle East Countries. The young woman (and sometimes the little girl)is forced to lay down,two other women hold her down, then another older woman takes usually a knife (scissors or broken glass) and cuts off the clitoris and other outer parts of the vagina. The woman or girl will be sewed up with a small hole left for urin and blood (and intercourse). Some women and girls die from this torture by bleeding to death or going into a shock which leads to death. The men in these tribes want the woman to be "pure" for them to be their wife. The woman should not have any pleasure for marital sex. The book tells her escape from Togo Africa and her continuing hell after that... Highly recommend.

An amazing, inspiring, touching yet horrifying journey...

There are some books that are so wonderful, so intense, that I simply get lost in them for the few days it takes me to finish them, and once I'm done, I want to share it with the world. This is one of those books, a truly moving, inspiring, fascinating, terrifying, heart-breaking and rewarding tale. Fauziya Kassindja is a Muslim African woman raised by a father she adored who did not adhere to many of the more restrictive Islamic customs relating to women. Upon his death, however, Fauziya is faced with a forced marriage and forced female circumcision and flees first to Germany and then to the United States, where she is promptly locked away in prision, initially denied asylum and kept imprisoned for an unbelievable amount of time.The story itself is both fascinating and heart-breaking, but Fauziya tells it with such detail and brutal honesty that it becomes even more powerful. She creates a beautiful picture of her childhood in Africa and life with her beloved father and family, and she conveys clearly and easily her naivete about laws and customs as she went first to the strange land and then to the literal and figurative prison of America. Her ambivalence about America - as the land of hope and escape turned jail - is understandable and she describes why a return to the horrors that awaited her at home suddenly seemed better than remaining in the series of prisons to which she was assigned.What makes Fauziya such a compelling figure - a real heroine - is her honesty and her struggle to stand up for her beliefs. She personifies the adage that courage is being scared but 'doing it anyway.' I grew angrier and angrier at the way in which women are treated here and around the world, that forced mutilation is not 'political' nor grounds for asylum, that gender has such an impact on how people are treated. Her faith in her religion, her love of her family, her wish to give in despite the horror that would greet her return to Africa all made her such a human, touching figure. This is not a book to be missed - everyone should read it - but for those concerned about the treatment of women and female circumcision - and far too many women have to deal with the brutality of it - this book is absolutely essential. When I finished, I wanted to learn more about Fauziya and what happened to her. I certainly hope that she has found the happiness and peace that she so deserves.

One of the best nonfiction works I've ever read.

This book will stay with you for a very long time. It reads like a work of fiction, and at times when reading it, I was wishing it was. The inhumane treatment this women suffers at the hands of people in this country is unbelievable. Her journey from her country to the United States if very poignant. It also shed a little insight into what goes on in other countries. I will remember this story for a long time. I strongly recommend this to everyone.

Sad story with a hopeful message

"My father was a modern man in a traditional culture who neither repudiated that culture nor let himself be bound by it. He embraced some parts of it, rejected others, and never stopped reevaluating his beliefs about good and bad, right and wrong. He also never deviated from his Muslim faith. We, his daughters, were the same- part modern, part traditional, and Muslim throughout". ~Fauziya Kassindja, Do They Hear You When You Cry, "Muslim Girl" This book is the true life story of Fauziya Kassindja, who lived in Togo, West Africa, for the first sixteen years of her life. Her father, an influencial man in her small town society, had always protected her from the dangers that most girls faced as part of her culture. However, when he died, his property (the house where she lived with her mother and sisters) was given to her aunt and uncle, who were very traditional. She was pledged to be married to a man three times her age who already had three wives, whom she was expected to serve. She was also being prepared to undergo what is none in Togo as Female Circumsism and what is known in the U.S. as Female Genital Mutilation (FGM). Fauziya was afraid of having her sacred, female parts destroyed and did not want to live with this man and his wives. A friend told her she could come to America, which helps victims from other country find safety, and he got her a passport. She was young and didn't know what was going on, and when she got to the U.S., she was put in jail. In this maximum-security ward, the illegal immigrants were treated worse than the prisoners convicted of major crimes. She was in this jail for a very long time before a passionate lawyer discovered her story and fought for crimes committed against women )gender-based persecution) to be included in the law that lets foreigners become U.S. citizens because they are fleeing persecuation in their country and seeking safety in ours.This story was utterly fascinating and inspiring; it kept me interested and rooting for Fauziya's case the whole way through. I found Fauziya to be a strong, perservering woman, and her lawyer was an inspiration to me as well. This is an educational and enlightening story.

A MUST read picture of asylum procedure in the US.

As a law student, I studied the process of refugees applying for asylum in the United States, but this autobiographical story added a much-needed human dimension to the process. The picture offered by Ms. Kassindja shamed me as a citizen of the United States. This is supposed to be a country that offers refuge to the tired, oppressed and persecuted, but the "Welcome" Ms. Kassindja recieved, and her subsequent detention, shows the callous disregard for humanity that has grown in U.S. Immigration policy. This story offers a day-by-day look at the process of U.S. Immigration policy, its political nature and one woman's struggle to gain her freedom from Female Genital Mutilation and an arranged marriage to a man who already had 3 wives.I immediately felt a bond to Fauzy and wept at the treatment our country gave her. The judges and processes portrayed are a realistic and tragic picture of U.S. Immigration processes here in Pennsylvania. This is not a look at a trajedy from a far away place that took place a long time ago - this is STILL happening to detainees in the U.S.