Une ex-musulmane somalienne raconte sa vie dans une famille très croyante qui lui a imposé le port du hijab.

I am 38 years old and a proud Ex-Muslim. It has been over 15 years since I unapologetically stopped wearing the hijab. Before that, I had fought battles with it, and against it. This story is about the enforcement of the hijab and how I fought tooth and nail to remove it from my head. This is a story I have wanted to tell for over ten years.

Here is my hijab story. Finally.

I do not remember if there was any time ever in my early childhood that I liked the hijab.  When I was seven years old, the hijab was introduced to my half-shaggy-half-silky hair. I was told that, as a young Somali girl, I needed to start ‘learning’ how to wear the hijab. The challenge was that I was an innately active child who liked climbing trees. Suddenly I had to take care of some loose piece of cloth that kept flying off my head. I lived in an arid, windy region of North Eastern Kenya. In addition to the harsh climate, there was now an annoying piece of clothing which I was meant to keep stuck on my head somehow. So, I think it is safe to say that I developed an early dislike for hijab. When no one was looking, I would ‘forget’ it at the top of the tree. And sometimes when it got tangled in thorny bushes, I would pull on it violently to tear the fabric – only for my mother to sew it up again, or hand me a new one.

The hijab – as uncomfortable as it was – was now part and parcel of my everyday regalia. When my parents bought new clothes for me they always included a brand new hijab.

I was in primary school. I liked jumping and skipping rope. I liked chasing birds, I liked digging holes on the ground – and the hijab was always in the way, always making me stumble. It would get tangled up in bushes. It was such a nuisance! I was a curious child, and  when no one was looking, I held the hijab really close to the open fire in the compound of my Qu’an school (dugsi in Somali). I burned my first hijab at nine years of age. Not for the same reasons you might be thinking now – but because I was a curious kid and I wanted to see what burning cloth looked like.