She committed a sin.
Her parents have been angry with her ever since.
It hurts knowing that if she were a guy,
They wouldn’t have treated her that way.

My problem is that I’m a kind and decent person.
The kind of person who thinks of others before acting, who puts himself in their shoes.
I literally have no friends, and I live far away from my family.
I even work online, so in a way, I don’t interact with people at all.

I still can’t forget the look on his face as he passed me by in a toktok after he had touched me from behind.
“Take that”, he said.
That was the first time I was sexually harassed. I was 15.

You’re a 31-year-old, married man who’s an engineer and has the opportunity to move to Canada!
Look for work at a good company, and forget about acting.

The metro was really crowded.
I was in the women-only car.
All of a sudden, a man entered.
“You’re in the wrong car. Please get off,” a girl told him.

My sister once gave me a card with pink flowers and pearls on it and some words on the back.
“My friend made them,” she said.
“She’s giving them out for free.”

“Keep your arms folded across your chest.
Keep your legs together to one side.
Straighten your back.
Keep your eyes ahead or on the ground.
If you want to smile, make sure it’s a subtle smile.
Don’t open your mouth when you smile.

Her family thought she was a slut.
They thought she had sex with him.

Her sister was positive she did something bad with him.
Otherwise she wouldn’t be insisting on marrying him.
She must be trying to cover up what she did.

I was sexually assaulted in public, and no one tried to help me.
It happened at night. They tied me up and started physically assaulting me.
Then, in turn, they started groping and molesting me.
When a passerby tried to intervene, they threatened to hit me again and to continue molesting me elsewhere.
gender violence, sexual violence, rape, social stigma, social pressure, 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.