I hate you.
I hate everything about you.
Your skin tone, your size, all your little details.
Trust me when I say that I’ve tried to accept you so many times, but I just can’t.
I can’t keep fooling myself.
body image, body shaming, beauty standards, harassment
Something annoying happens every Ramadan.
As a woman, I’m looked at as a glitch in the Egyptian societal system.
I’m seen as a problem, just because I don’t cover my hair.
social stigma, social pressure, hijab, hair, harassment, the street
I’ve been sexually abused since I was 5 years old.
I can still feel his hand on me, his leers.
Without going into more details, the whole thing was creepy.
I was molested by my uncle.
Whenever I was at my grandmother’s, he’d sit close to me, touch me.
And I was stupid and didn’t understand what was going on.
gender violence, sexual violence, child molestation, harassment
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.
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.
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.
As I was leaving Hijr-Ismail—it can get really crowded there—I felt someone shove their hand between my legs and grope me.
I immediately spun around and started punching the man behind me.
“In front of the Holy Kaaba, you kaafir?!” I screamed.