I saw a 7-year-old boy physically harassing a girl.
I was confused.
How did the boy know which parts of the woman’s body
to touch?
How? He’s only seven!

It was the second year of college.
I was going through a lot of problems at the time.
They were either related to college, home, or relationships.
I used to talk to and confide in a spiritual guide who knew my family.
gender violence, sexual violence, harassment

I never physically harassed a woman.
When I would like a girl, I would go speak to her.
It satisfied my ego.
That was until I saw a girl being harassed in the street.

I was walking down the street, it was about an hour after Eid prayers, when a guy riding past on a motorcycle tried to touch me.

I was leaning against a pole behind the driver’s seat, and through the crowd, I saw a man smiling at me.
I closed my eyes for a bit—I was dying to sleep—and when I opened them again, the man was standing in front of me, holding onto the pole I was leaning against.

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.

I found out what harassment was when I was in sixth grade.
I’ll never forget that day.
I’ll never forget what he looked like.
It was in the morning and the streets were relatively empty.
He was moving behind me on a bike.
I suddenly felt his hand on my body.
gender violence, harassment, the street

One time, I was followed by a tok tok driver who shouted all sorts of obscenities at me.
“You’re disgusting”, was all I managed to muster.

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.

I used to wear skirts and blouses.
I had a good body, and my breasts were relatively perky.
gender violence, sexual violence, harassment, the street