There are things that have happened,
That we refuse to admit.
Even when we remember the details.
We can never admit they’re true.
It’s just like watching a film,
That you aren’t the protagonist of.
That could never happen to me.
I’m stronger and better than that.
It’s never going to happen to me.

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’m a woman who has been struggling her entire life.
Ever since I was a little girl,
I’ve been struggling.
My father was a national railways inspector.
He passed away.
I got married to a man who came from a modest family.
I thought they’d care about my wellbeing.

S: “Who was he?”
G: “My godfather.”
I had been searching for an apartment for a long time.
I had to sleep in his office several times.

He was like a father to me.
He’s the one that encouraged this idea.

I’m happy I made Hassan furious in court.
He looked furious, ready to explode.
I was scared in court.
When the judge asked me why I wanted a divorce,
I said that I felt we were incompatible.
Hassan looks older than he is.
The trial was postponed,
But I’m happy that I made him furious today.
I was scared,
But I tried to ignore my fear.

He was my neighbor at our old house.
He wasn’t much older than me.
We became friends really quickly and talked on the phone a lot.
We couldn’t go out together here.
He called me one day and told me he was on his way back from university and would stay for a while at his family’s apartment.
“I want to see you,” he said.

There was an uproar on Facebook a while back over the group rape of children at a school.
The children were forcefully gathered and put together in one place.
It’s said that they were put on the roof once, and in the school theatre another time.
There were a lot of rumors surrounding the incident,
So it wasn’t clear what exactly happened. 

His cousin tried to convince me to go back to him.
I told him I won’t.
He said, “Do it for the girls.”
I told him, “Growing up with a mother and father, who are divorced, but respect one another, is so much better than living with two people who hate each other.”

My father was the first person to touch me.
I used to tell myself that I was imagining it.
When he’d touch me with his leg from behind,
I’d tell myself he was just being playful.

I was around nine years old.
My siblings and I were living with my aunt because our parents lived abroad.
My aunt’s children were older than us.
There weren't any specific places for us to sleep in.
gender violence, sexual violence, child molestation, rape