Kiledjian, Lucie <br/><br/>
Tensions in the mother-daughter relationship in Mayotte 

 -  2021.<br/>							 
<br/><br/> 100 
<br/><br/> The experiences and conceptions of the rape of young girls in Mayotte give rise to constructs entailing opposing forms of the unbearable: while the victim status is assigned to the teenager by professionals, the mother will often blame her daughter’s carelessness. An anthropologist and two clinical psychologists shed light on this issue in three steps. The anthropological description of the instatement of the notion of female honor around puberty and virginity reveals a mutual dependency between mother and daughter in their respective life-cycle rituals. The clinical analysis of the experience of these social ordeals evidences the risk of a social and a symbolic undoing for mothers and daughters. Finally, the unbearable also exists for professionals who place high hopes in the judicial system. Although not favored by the families, this approach can have various psychological and social functions for both daughters and their mothers.