Women's eNews (https://womensenews.org/author/tatyana-bellamy-walker/)
It’s hard for Muslim teens who want to date but don’t want to fray family bonds or challenge their faith. “I had to do everything behind my parents’ back,” one teen says. “I didn’t like that.”
“They started calling me albino,” says one girl. “I didn’t like that at all.” While a high proportion of students who get bullied are multiracial, this type of harassment often goes unnoticed by school authorities, recent research finds.
In 38 states, teens must require parental consent to get an abortion. To conceal the procedure from their parents some seek “judicial bypass.” Here, a woman in Wisconsin looks back on what that entailed 11 years ago, when she was 17.
“He would text her all the time and say threatening stuff,” one teen says of her friend. “She was really depressed. She was afraid to go to school.”
“You get one speech and everybody ignores it, like harassment isn’t there,” says one student. Another says “the focus has to shift to telling boys that they can’t treat girls in certain ways.”
As the Girl Scouts seeks to revitalize, dropouts here talk about the turnoffs. Loyalists, however, tout a crafting boom, the way the program is updating and how it’s fun to be part of the world’s largest girl-led business. Story with reporting from Tatyana Bellamy Walker.