I know how to tweeze and thread.
I'm an employee by day, but I do these things at night.
The troll I'm married to sits at home all day and doesn't make a penny to spend on the kids, and he gives me a beating every other day or so.

I was eight years old.
I was playing in the streets,
Where a sixty year old man used to sell honey.
He would get us honey every month.
That time there was no one at home.

My name is Khadra.
I’m 33 and I’m a middle school dropout,
But I don’t know how to read or write.
My parents passed away, and I have three kids:
Basma, Dina, and Amr.
My husband passed away too.

I’m a girl, and I’m bullied every day,
Because I wear a cross.
People give me mean looks.
I try my best to ignore them, but they’re too much.
I’ve never really reacted to anything they’ve done.
But the way they look at me, it’s like they’re asking, “How dare you wear a cross?”
social stigma, harassment, the street

Don’t you dare think of pressing charges like those women in the movie did.
A respectable girl would never go into a police station full of men and tell them that a man, for example, grabbed her here or touched her leg.
This country is full of incidents like these, and women never speak up. Don’t you go playing the hero

When I first started work, I used to talk to the clients in a very professional manner, saying "sir" and "mister", and I would find them replying with things like, "Sure, beautiful," and "Yes, love."

I am a 23-year-old guy.
I come from a well-known family.
I graduated a year ago from business school.
From the moment I was born,
My life has been full of suffering.
My father was very harsh on me and my siblings,
But I was almost the only one affected by his cruelty.
He used to beat me over the smallest mistakes.
He used to humiliate me,
Call me names in front of people,
And degrade me in front of my friends.

I was released by the 4th night.
I went home, carrying the clothes and stuff I had with me in jail.
I knocked on my family’s door.
I needed to go to the bathroom. I wanted to shower and all that.
prison, social stigma, marriage

I hugged my friend out in public because he needed it, and because I needed it too.
When I heard the comments, I pulled away from him by saying, “What’s this? You’re crying?”
But I had wanted to keep on hugging him until he had let it all out.
I wanted to hug him without fearing or worrying what passersby would say.

After I left him,
I rented a place in a building that belonged to one of my friends,
Because my sister would call my ex to come over,
so I left her and swore I’d never set foot in her place again.
social stigma, divorce, sex work