Mazes of tight and sinuous alleys decorated with a set of electric cords, dilapidated buildings, piled up trash, and portraits of national heroes in the streets… The shops are little rag bags and the atmosphere is very noisy. Here we are in Chatila, Borj El Barajneh, and Baddawi.

Those places are not called cities. They are known as camps because they only include Palestinian exiled families. Some of those camps are topicality subjects because of the confrontations between the different Palestinian factions who live there. In summer 2007, violence in those camps has reached a climax, due to the conflicts between the Islamic militants of Fatah al Islam and the Lebanese army in Nahr el Bared.

This long battle highlighted the rise of Islamism in Lebanon, especially in the Palestinian refugee camps. This report includes many articles about this rise of fundamentalism, or even terrorism in the refugee camp of Lebanon.

But life in the Palestinian camps is also very hard for thousands of civilians who reside there. In fact, some of them adopt militant positions, while some others remain far from the political issues. Among those civilians are women who do their best to live peacefully in the meanders of those agglomerations, which are almost isolated from the rest of the country.

We met some of those women who shiver between the load of traditions, the absence of perspectives, and the desire of modernity. The traditional grandmother and the single independent woman: both of them have various profiles that are sometimes very surprising. Without any political consideration, here are some portraits of several first and second generation exiled women in Chatila, Borj El Barajneh, and Baddawi.