They Pushed Her into a Corner

2015

One day they brought bang snaps to school,
And they threw it at Mrs. Cherine while she was writing on the board.
She was startled and when she turned around
Two or three boys got up, closed the door, turned off the lights,

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Saw Me and Walked Away

2015

I stopped going to school at that time.
I didn’t know what harassment was, but there was a rape incident being talked about on TV.
I thought he had raped me.
When I finally found the courage to start going out again, I would hide behind other women in the street.

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I’m Fighting Alone

2018

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

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They circled Him

2015

When I was in the eighth grade, there was a boy with me at school who was blond and fair-skinned. He was a grade younger than I was.
Wherever he went, the other students would harass him. He was absent a lot because of this. His father came in to complain more than once but to no avail.

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About Periods

2015

There was a teacher called Soheir or Siham.
One time, she closed the classroom door during religion class,
And, in a very shy tone, bombarded us with a wealth of information in just three minutes.

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Christian Teacher, Small Village

2019

The kids at school were the first to surprise me.
It was their first time dealing with a Christian.
During class,
A kid would interrupt me to ask,
“Do you speak Arabic like us?

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Inside a circle of men

2014

When I was in middle school, I went to a school in Al Mandara, and there was a girls' school across the street from ours. We used to finish school at the same time.

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Spiked Rod

2017

No one has ever experienced what my father put me through.
It’s such a difficult thing to live through,
When you’re a kid in first grade,
And your father takes you home from school,
And beats you with a spiked rod,
Nails penetrating your entire body.
It was a long walk home,
And I was being beaten up continuously,
blood gushing out of the wounds.
All of this for something I didn’t do.
Something that wasn’t my fault.

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Ms. Hoda and the School Uniform

2015

Girls, I know that at this age, you like to flaunt your beauty.
“Look at my long hair!
Look at whatever!”
Here, you must forget about all those things.
The uniform you must wear is a galabiyya.
The kind your mothers wear.

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Don't Talk to Boys

2015

“Why do you talk to boys?
Why’d we send you to an all-girls school then?”

FULL STORY
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