Then I told them I was going to the bathroom.
The bathroom was in a dark area,
So I told my cousin to come with me.
“I’ll come with you because it’s dark,” the relative said.
A girl was walking to a supermarket near her house after iftaar when a kid—no older than 18—said the most disgusting things to her as he fondled himself.
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 was harassed two years ago.
I was walking down the street,
And I felt someone following me,
So I went down another street,
But he kept following me.
When I was ten years old,
The sheikh called me to him and took me inside a closet,
Where he touched my private parts.
There was a guy in a red car,
Who kept slowing down for me.
He kept saying something,
But I can’t bring myself to say it out loud.
All I can say is that it was about a specific part of my back.
If only my mother had explained why she had warned me,
And what could have happened to me,
I certainly wouldn’t have gone.
gender violence, sexual violence, child molestation
We went with them,
And I don’t remember anything about that day,
Except for the doctor yelling at me.
She told me to take off my pants,
But I refused.
They gave me anesthesia,
And cut off a part of me.
I regained consciousness when I had become a “woman.”
Everything changed after that day.
Gender violence; sexual violence; physical violence; FGM; sex