Immigrants' second wives find few rights

Hoiloyo Diop is - as she calls herself time and again - "the second wife." She's also the mother of eight. Hers is not an easy situation, she says. "Every morning we line up in front of the bathroom door, waiting until the first wife has finished bathing herself and her children,'' she says, speaking with arms folded and eyes cast down. And it's a long wait - the first wife is the mother of nine.

In the evening, they stand in line again.

Diop, who is originally from Senegal, shares a five-room apartment in Les Mureaux, a city west of Paris, with her husband, his first wife, and their combined 17 children.

"Four of my children sleep in one room, the others share another room. That's no good. They wake up tired and have problems concentrating at school,'' she says. In France, Diop has discovered, a second wife has few rights - inside or outside the home.

Diop is one of many thousands of women in France today caught in a gap between African tradition and Western social and legal codes.

The French government estimates that there are somewhere between 8,000 and 15,000 polygamous families within its borders, originating from countries in Africa and the Middle East. These husbands married two or more women legally in their home country, and have, on average, 10 children.

France declared polygamy illegal in 1993. After that, officially, second wives were not allowed to enter the country for the purpose of reuniting with their husbands. But French authorities - whether from sympathy or other motives - have largely looked the other way and allowed many of the "second women" to enter the country and take up residency.

This leniency has created a unique set of problems because these women are not legal residents and have no rights. They are not allowed to work and they are not entitled to any form of social welfare.

As a result, they become totally dependent on their husbands. Many times they have no access to birth control and are not even allowed to leave the house.

For some, it creates a sad and debilitating lifestyle - something they never anticipated when they agreed to a polygamous marriage in the country of their birth. "Back in Senegal we never had a problem with polygamy," says Diop. "[In France] everything is different.''

The clash between the two cultures creates a strange kind of legal limbo that it is unfair to force upon these second wives, says Marie-Françoise Savigny.

She's the administrator in Les Mureaux responsible for solidarity and social affairs. Concentrated in two areas in the city there are about 80 polygamous families, with as many as 1,000 children.

They find themselves living in a culture unequipped to accommodate a polygamous lifestyle.

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