My dad was engaged to a woman called Aida before he married my mom. Mom used to ask him, "Why did you break it off with her?"

“Go take a pregnancy test and come back, so I can start processing your papers”.

I entered the women’s metro car, and as usual, found men there.
Usually I fight them, but that day I wasn’t feeling well, so I said nothing.

I was walking past an qahwa (local cafe).
I could see them trying to form a circle around me.
No one from the qahwa did anything to stop them.
I don’t know where that scream came from, but it made them leave.

I think I was 9 or 10 years old.
I was at the marketplace with my aunt,
When a man with a crutch, and who was older than my grandfather, groped my behind.
He kept walking around in the market looking for other girls to grope.
I looked at him in disgust and anger.
gender violence, sexual violence, rape, social stigma, social pressure, the street

I remember being 12 or so.
I had been invited over to a friend's house for dinner.
The table was laid and dinner was served.
I started eating and that's when things got tense.
My friend's mother asked me not to eat with my left hand.
social stigma, social pressure

I get bullied and insulted.
It happened that once the religion teacher performed on me the Islamic practice of healing in front of my classmates.
They had planned to do it because they saw that my being different was something abnormal.
I couldn’t do anything.
When I tried to speak up, they just said that it was a joke.
social stigma, depression, school, bullying

We were walking down the street, holding hands.
A man passed us by and laughed in derision.
“What are you in love or something?”
social stigma, sexuality, harassment, the street

I wore the hijab even though I wasn’t really convinced I should.
I was trying to please God, since it’s an obligation for Muslim women.
It was also a way of meeting society’s standards of being modest.

I used to always watch her from the examination room window in the government hospital that I worked at.
Her name was Sokkara. She was young. She couldn’t be older than 13 years old.