On July 13, 2001, in Hassi Messaoud, an oil-rich town in southern Algeria, following virulent preaching by the imam, about 500 men assaulted and tortured some 50 women during a raid to inflict punishment.
Public humiliation, family scorn, silence from the foreign press and fear of reprisals followed this nightmarish experience, which most of the victims chose to forget. But some women refused to forget and demanded that the culprits face punishment - Rahmouna Salah and Fatiha Maamoura fought right up to the trial.
From their childhood in patriarchal families, through marriages, renunciations and divorces, to the birth of their children, these women tell of the difficulties of living outside the yoke of men in a society undergoing terrible upheavals.
