Charlie Hebdo, the French satirical weekly that was the target of a terror attack in Paris a few years ago over its cartoons mocking Muslim radicals, has an article running that is anything but satirical. It concerns the fate of a young girl named Shaina, who was gang raped at 13 and murdered at 15. The story is sad and shocking. It also highlights the ugly practice of hanging the label of "whore" on a young woman. This practice is exacerbated in certain neighborhoods in France inhabited by those from a different culture, one that seemingly permits boys and men to do whatever they want with women. It also points to the failure of French society to protect women in general.
The below article from Charlie Hebdo is translated by Fousesquawk.
Narrative: "I (burned) her": The killer of Shaina, burned alive at the age of 15, on trial for murder
Laure Daussy: Posted 5 June 2023
On Monday, 5 June, the trial in the criminal court of l'Oisy begins for the alleged murderer of young Shaina, murdered 25 October 2019 at the age of 15 while she was pregnant. The young girl had been sexually assaulted two years previous. She has become a symbol of violence against women, particularly living in a neighborhood where rumors and prohibitions weighing heavily on young women are more present than elsewhere.
Illustration: Creil- a city to live......left to right, Its church, its river, its femicides
In the summer of 2019, young Shaina was just beginning to recover from the terrible traumas that she had been subjected to. She had been sexually assaulted in 2017, when she was 13 years old, by her boyfriend at the time, Ahmed*, who trapped her in an unused clinic with two of his friends. Then she was beaten on a street in Creil in March 2019, probably to punish her for lodging a complaint. In the summer of 2019, "Shaina had finally regained confidence in herself. She had moved away from the Creil basin," her mother, Parveen, recalls.
On her return at the end of August- beginning of September, she met a boy on social media who we will call Driss. They began to see each other occasionally in the town. One October evening, when Shaina's mother returned home after work, she found Shaina's room empty, her daughter had not returned. She had left her handbag and inside was a positive pregnancy test. Panicked, the parents went to the police station and explained that their daughter had disappeared, recalling the previous attacks. But incomprehensibly, they were asked to come back later.
The same evening, a fire occurred in the sheds of a worker's garden in the neighborhood of Rouher. The firefighters respond not suspecting what it is. For a day, Shaina's family searches desperately. There is a rumor that a body has been discovered in the sheds, and some youths alert the police. Yasin, her older brother, arrives at the scene on 27 October. It is the scene of the crime, the investigators are on the scene, a helicopter in the sky. He tries to cross the barriers, "I'm looking for my sister." An investigator lowers his eyes, and asks him: "Is she wearing a ring? Braces on her lower teeth?" "Yes, that's right". He then understands that the carbonized body is that of his younger sister.
Captions (2) on illustration of the crime scene: Left: This empty and muddy land was the location of gardeners and their sheds. In one of these sheds, the body of Shaina was found. It is not an isolated place. It is just in front of the windows of apartments.
Bottom: It was proposed to place a plaque for Shaina here. That will not be done for fear it would be desecrated.
On the evening of the 25th, she was stabbed and burned alive. Quickly, the rumor spreads in the town: It was Driss who reportedly murdered her. Driss reportedly confided to some of his friends. A young man in the town, Moussa* , who we met with, told us that he had heard that Driss had asked a strange question: "If you burn someone, can you have problems?" The police station of Creil received several anonymous calls reporting the young man. A few days later, one of Driss' friends came to the station spontaneously to give his testimony. Driss reportedly admitted to having killed Shaina. He reportedly said, "I burned her". He explained that Driss reportedly invited Shaina to the shed with the intention of killing her, (and) he reportedly hid a kitchen knife, a pair of gloves, and a bottle of gasoline in the shed. He wanted to kill Shaina because she was pregnant by him, and he didn't want to have a child with her.
Caption on illustration (left): The unused clinic where Shaina was gang raped at the age of 13. Today torn down (From a photo).
"Father of a son of a whore"
The alleged murderer challenges this testimony and maintains that his "friend" wanted to take revenge against him because he had gone out with one of his former girlfriends. Among the other elements of the accusation, along with other testimonies, the geo-location of Driss' cell phone on the evening of the crime. On his computer, investigators also discovered that he had done searches on "penal judgment", and "judgment of criminal court". Also, a YouTube video entitled, "A child of 15-I am for it".
Captions (2) on illustration (right):
Top left: "Yes, my sister lives here. So I know the history. These gardens were already abandoned. We don't know much what happened. There were benches, and chairs, you see....we don't want to know much....."
Bottom right: It is here by this tree where the shed was located-today torn down-where Shaina was killed.
Placed in detention after his arrest, Driss reportedly bragged about the murder to two of his cellmates. His comments are revealing of the contempt he felt regarding Shaina. When a cellmate asked him why he was in prison, he reportedly responded,"proudly with a smile".... "that he was there because he had killed his girlfriend, who was a whore and had become pregnant, and that he did not want his mother to find out because he was a Muslim". He reportedly also said that he preferred "to get 30 years than be the father of a bastard, to be the father of a son of a whore". At the beginning of his detention, he continued to rap from his cell, posting content on Instagram as if nothing had happened.
Driss has been maintaining his innocence from the beginning. And this, "against the evidence" as the lawyer for Shaina's family stresses. The defense intends to cram in all possible errors. "There is no material element to prove the crime," says Elise Arfi, defense lawyer. "On the knife, male DNA was found that is not that of my client and has not been identified". An element, however, to be put into perspective, since the handle of the knife-where the murderer's DNA should be found- was entirely burned in the fire. The unidentified DNA was found on the blade, a small quantity and not significant. The defense says that Driss "was designated early on as the ideal culprit," and that, "no other lead was explored". The lawyer is surprised, for example, that the elements concerning the sexual attack could not be attached to this case, implying that this lead was not sufficiently considered.
The reputation
Beyond this trial is the appalling history of a young woman, victim to the failures of the justice system and police, as well as the sexism of our society, and even more exacerbated in the neighborhood where she grew up. Shaina was one of 146 femicides in 2019, but her death recalls that of Sohane Benziane, who also died burned alive in 2002 in the town of Vitry-sur-Seine, murdered by a rejected boy who wanted to take revenge. In investigating in Creil, other young women confided to us of having fear of being subjected to the same as Shaina**. There are many who live under the permanent control of the watch of certain boys, condemned to not being able to dress as they want and condemned to absolute discretion if they have a boyfriend. Hovering above them is this fear of falling into the eminently sexist category of "easy girl", an expression only existing for females.
It is enough to have had a sexual relationship with a boy or even to be the object of revenge by one of them for the rumor to spread. "We called Shaina "the whore", blurts out an 18-year-old youth from Plateau du Rouher, whom we met, without knowing whether he feels bad about it or if it's just destiny.
"Easy girl", "whore", that is how Shaina was perceived. According to his first depositions, Ahmed had begun to spread this rumor to take revenge on her because she had refused to send him photos of herself nude. A categorization that had then been amplified after the sexual attack. And this reputation can kill. The alleged murderer had confided to the psychiatric expert that he wanted to go out with Shaina, precisely because of this reputation, sure that he would have sexual relations with her, himself having been raised in religious strictness that prohibited him from having any sexual relations before marriage.
A feeling of impunity
This sexist mentality is so entrenched that for some time, the Rouher plateau was divided, and certain inhabitants continued to support the murderer. When we went to a tribute marking two years since the death of the young girl, one of her girlfriends confided: "How many times they told me that she was looking for it! We heard that she deserved it, and not just the friends of the murderer. Some act as if she had never existed, it's silence. With my friends, I can't talk about it. I meet the friends of the murderer in the neighborhood. They are in contact with him." As for the rape, "many say that it was her own free will. Even I doubted. Here, many think that when you have had a relationship with a boy, you have to do it with everyone. Some girls have also fueled her reputation."
Faced with this situation, the spread of the rumor, the institutions-police and justice- were not able to protect the young girl. During the entire course of the investigation for the sexual attack, her word was questioned. Indeed, there is a need for justice to verify the accusations of the complainant, but in reading the file, one has the impression that her word was never taken into account. Even the psychiatric expert who had met with her doubted her word. Justice also functioned very slowly in judging this sexual attack, which could have foreshadowed a feeling of impunity on the part of the alleged murderer.
In the first part of the story, the three youths, between the ages of 14 and 16 at the time of the acts, as well as a fourth, tried for an attack suffered a week prior, were finally sentenced Thursday, June 1st in the second instance, to suspended sentences from 6 months to two years. For the beating, Ahmed was sent to the juvenile court of Senlis for the acts of "aggravated violence" and has not yet been tried. Driss is charged with murder. He faces a sentence of 20 years in prison, even life if the criminal court lifts the excuse of being a minor.
* Names have been changed.
** On this subject, note the publication next October in La Reputation. Investigation into the making of "easy girls", by Laure Daussy (editor Les Échappés).
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