"I'm twenty years old, but they won't let me leave the house alone unless I'm with my nine-year-old brother."

Dossier Violations of the rights of immigrant girls 3 articles

• "I'm twenty years old, but they won't let me leave the house alone unless I'm with my nine-year-old brother."
• "There are cultural practices that should not be tolerated."
• "The forced marriages that are detected are just the tip of the iceberg."

BarcelonaNone of them are willing to have their real names appear in this report, and most prefer to conduct the interview by telephone. Some are minors, teenagers: their voices and manner of expression give them away. However, their ages are irrelevant because they all tell similar stories. Soraya is 20 years old, of Moroccan origin, and claims that her parents don't let her leave the house alone. She always has to be accompanied by her nine-year-old brother or her fifteen-year-old sister. Sukleen, 16, born in India but raised here, laments that her parents don't let her socialize with boys. And Laila, also 16 but originally from Bangladesh, was beaten by her father simply for wanting to study music.

On January 28, a group of educators from the Raval neighborhood of Barcelona released a statement. through the Betevé television channel In this article, they denounced that girls of immigrant origin are prohibited from playing sports, music, dancing, going to summer camp, or even something as harmless as going for a walk with their friends. They can only go from home to school and from school to home. All of them are young women who grew up here, have a Western mentality, speak Catalan, but their parents are immigrants. Barcelona City Council claimed at the time to be unaware of the problem.

ARA has investigated for weeks: it has spoken with educators, teachers, and young people, and has confirmed that what the professionals were reporting is true. These are not isolated cases, but the problem is bigger than we think; it has been going on for some time, and the City Council was fully informed. What's more: it extends beyond the Raval neighborhood and may be the precursor to a forced marriage.

It is striking that all the professionals this newspaper has spoken to have requested anonymity. They fear losing their jobs or the trust of immigrant families, and they lament that the administrations wash their hands of the problem by claiming that the problem is too big a problem that, if opened, could fuel xenophobia. Should we really look the other way?

The alarm bells ring

On November 30, 2023, a school raised the alarm with the municipal school board of the Ciutat Vella district. The school leader expressed concern about this problem, according to the minutes of the meeting. Also on those dates, various prominent organizations that are part of the Taula Jove del Raval, a coordinating body for neighborhood organizations in which municipal technicians participate, agreed to form a committee dedicated to this issue and record the cases they detected in a joint document.

ARA has had access to this document: "15-year-old girl says her father hits her with a stick for associating with boys from the club," "14-year-old girl assumes her family will choose a husband for her after 18," "12-year-old girl stops going to the pool after her first period." These are just a few examples of the dozens of incidents recorded in just a few months.

In the spring of 2024, also at the Taula Jove (Youth Fair), municipal technicians urged neighborhood organizations to count the number of girls and boys participating in summer camps and summer camps to verify whether there really was a substantial gender gap. However, only three organizations did so.

On November 15, neighborhood educators met with City Hall technicians to insist on the problem and request that the administration take action immediately. The response they received was that, if the educators detected any cases, they would refer them to social services. "This exposes the girls and will cause families who still take their daughters to extracurricular activities to stop doing so," lament the educators, who believe that this is not the solution at all.

That's why in January they made the complaint public and formed a group that they have named For themBecause, they say, they're doing it for these girls and their rights. Their goal is to formally establish themselves as an association to continue detecting new cases, become a leader in the Barcelona area, and pressure the authorities to take action.

"These situations have gone in crescendo"As an educator, I don't know what to do anymore, but what I'm clear about is that the problem can't be swept under the rug," says one of the professionals from this group. According to her, the restrictions begin as soon as the girls start menstruating. "Families only allow them to do extracurricular activities or, at most, go to the library. Some also accept that they pursue higher education, but only because it will give them status to find a better husband." And she insists: "We act as a platform for what the girls tell us; it's not our white perspective. And this doesn't just happen in Raval: it also happens in Vic, Gelida, Ciutat Meridiana..."

The head of a school laments "the misunderstood do-gooderism" that exists regarding the immigrant community. "We have to do a lot of digging to get these girls to go to summer camps. Society has become polarized, and so have these families." This is confirmed by an educator who is not part of the Per Elles collective but is part of an important Raval organization: "They are girls broken inside. They have been educated here, but they cannot do what they want."

Laila is 16 years old, born in Bangladesh but has lived her entire life in Barcelona. Her passion is music. She's taken violin lessons since she was eight, but at twelve her father forbade her to continue. "He said music distracted me from my studies, but that's not true because I used to get good grades," she says in a timid voice on the other end of the phone. Her father beat her and broke her violin so she wouldn't play anymore. "I explained what had happened to the counselors at the youth center, and some social workers went to talk to my parents. Since then, they treat me with more respect. I've always hoped that one day we could speak out."

Soraya, of Moroccan origin, prefers to conduct the interview in writing via WhatsApp. She would like to be a soccer player. She began to excel with the ball when she was little, but as soon as she reached puberty, her parents forbade her from continuing to play. She is now 20 years old. "My parents told me they're going to find me a husband, and they won't let me leave the house alone. I always have to be accompanied by my nine-year-old brother or my fifteen-year-old sister."

No relationships with boys

"I used to go play ping-pong in the park, but a friend of my mother's saw me playing with some boys, told my parents, and they wouldn't let me go anymore," laments Sukleen, 16, of Indian origin. To stop her from socializing with boys, her father also beat her. "I can't go to the pool or to the summer camp either."

Enaam, 20, of Moroccan origin, is one of the few who has agreed to a face-to-face interview and to have her real name published. She has a childlike face and very clear ideas. Last summer, her older brother attacked her and locked her in the house for hours to prevent her from going to work. The police had to intervene. "He wanted me to show him my contract so he could know how much I get paid, but I don't want to show it to him because otherwise he'd take all my money. I already contribute 200 euros to the household expenses every month," she explains.

There are many more cases: Mariam, 16, from a Pakistani family, says she has no problems with her parents, but they advise her not to associate with Catalans because "they are a bad influence." Khadija, of Moroccan origin, ran away from home at 19 with the help of the Valentes i Acompanyades association to avoid a forced marriage: "My parents thought I would be a whore, that I would do nothing with my life. And I am a hard-working and successful person." Now 27, she is a computer programmer.

"If a girl has a boyfriend, she is considered a whore. And dancing and singing are also frowned upon because it is a way of attracting the opposite sex," says Huma Jamshed Bashir, president of the Pakistani women's association ACESOP, who clarifies that all these beliefs have more to do with tradition than religion. She also asserts that families are even stricter here than in their countries of origin because "there are more opportunities." In other words, young women here are more likely to stray.

This is also confirmed by Moroccan-born social worker Hakima Abdoun Serrak, who specializes in gender violence. She says families can be more or less radical, but for all of them, their main concern is honor and what people will say. "The most important thing is that the girl arrives a virgin when she gets married, so the less socialization, the better." Abdoun Serrak created a platform in 2019 with other young women to highlight the fact that "this is not a personal problem, but a collective one." In other words, all these girls must go through the same ordeal, and it's not just a situation specific to Raval. The platform was called Neswia, gave these young women a voice on social media and had a WhatsApp support group.

Forced marriages

"Mothers are the ones who exert the most pressure. They have the responsibility of raising their daughters and they can't fail. They resort to emotional blackmail: they even threaten suicide," explains Abdoun Serrak, who also asserts that "forced marriages are just the tip of the iceberg." "Before they get there, the girls go through this whole process of control." Being of legal age doesn't save them either: "Their [foreign] name is an impediment to finding a rental or a job." In other words, it's not that easy to leave home.

The Neswia platform stopped being active a while ago. According to Abdoun Serrak, it required too much dedication, and they didn't receive the support they expected: "What hurts the most is the silence of the left, of those who you think will protect you. That's what has burned us all the most."

The Catalan Ombudsman has initiated an ex officio investigation following the complaint filed by the Raval teachers. For its part, Barcelona City Council responded as follows after learning that the ARA has evidence that the council has been aware of the problem for some time: "We are aware that this concern exists. Municipal services are analyzing whether it is truly justified and what its scope would be, but at this time we still do not have the data to make an assessment."

The Department of Social Rights highlights that the amount allocated to socio-educational leisure activities for young people from vulnerable families increased from €892,162 in 2023 to €1.7 million in 2024, which represents an increase of 99.24%. However, this does not guarantee that girls of immigrant origin will participate.

And the Department of Feminism and Equality has not even begun to seriously address the issue. prevent forced marriagesIn October 2023, a new model for addressing this problem was approved with 49 specific measures for 2024 and 2025, updating the protocol that had been in place since 2020. However, most of the measures planned for last year were not implemented: neither was a guide on self-protection measures prepared in different languages, nor was a website created with specific information on this topic, nor was a pilot prevention test carried out with groups of women and men...

Forced marriages in Catalonia

"The agents who are supposed to implement these measures change with the governments, and in September there was a change of government, and everything has to be put back in place," explains Belén Gallo García, Director General for the Eradication of Gender-Based Violence, who assures that they have already begun training professionals on this topic. However, there is still nothing practical, tangible, or clear to prevent forced marriages, with a few exceptions. In La Garrotxa, for example, there is a specific protocol from the regional council that details the contacts of professionals, with names and surnames, who should be contacted in such cases, and lists the signs that should set off alarm bells. These indicators include a girl between 14 and 18 years old and excessive parental control.

"It would have helped me if someone had asked me if something was wrong, if I had a problem," says Khadija, when asked how other girls who, like her, will have to go through this ordeal could be helped. "We need to do socio-educational work with the communities," suggests Abdoun Serrak. And Carme Vinyoles, director and co-founder of one of the few Catalan organizations specializing in forced marriages, Valentes i AcompaNyades believes that an institutional campaign and the allocation of resources are necessary to tackle this problem. In any case, they all agree that the administration is the one that should take action.

"We understand the fear of the growth of the far right and the proliferation of hate speech against the immigrant population, but it's important to make visible the kind of sexist violence that nothing can justify," adds Vinyoles, who also believes that doing so will pay off: "These girls won't do the same to their own daughters. They will be agents of change for their own community."

Dossier Violations of the rights of immigrant girls 3 articles

• "I'm twenty years old, but they won't let me leave the house alone unless I'm with my nine-year-old brother."
• "There are cultural practices that should not be tolerated."
• "The forced marriages that are detected are just the tip of the iceberg."