Knz in La Petite Maison, Paris, France, 2017 Knz left Algeria with her mother when she was ten years old to escape the black decade, a troubled period. They asked for the political refugee status. At that point, Knz's mother's husband was about to take a fifth wife and her mum wanted a better future for her daughter. But after arriving in France her mother, who was a pretty liberal woman in Algeria, was completely isolated and found refuge in Islam, which was a link to her homeland. It started to clash with Knz when after seeing her friend's note her mum accused her of being a lesbian and threw her out. That's why Knz started to squat when she was 16. When she went back to Algeria after 10 years of absence, her cousins picked her up and asked where was her hijab, that there was no way she could walk around their neighborhood without covering up and dishonor the family. Knz said there was no way, she grew up in France and didn't receive a religious education, how could they ask this from her? She met feminists there who were asking for the right to drink coffee at a terrace. They would go during the quiet time and sit down but they would get beaten up and thrown in jail. When Knz came back to France, she thanked her mother for leaving Algeria, thing that changed their relationship because she always blamed her for migrating without asking her opinion, kind of cutting her from her roots. She told her that now she understood. Photo by Su Cassiano/Middle East Images/ABACAPRESS.COM