Evgenia
“I was unconscious for three days once after he banged my head against the toilet.”
Name: Evgenia
Age: 26
Maryam
“It’s better to bring the girls up properly than to put them through that. And now my own mother feels the same way!”
Name: Maryam Saiid
Age: 32
The midwife had a razor. I bled for a whole week afterwards.
I never talked to my mother about what had happened. It was a forbidden topic of conversation.
I still don’t enjoy sex.
Nur
“He beat me so hard that I left home many times. The police used to pick me up and make me go home again.”
Name: Nur
Age: 17
Almost a year had passed since my mother died. She had divorced my father because he was violent, but she died of a heart disease. That’s why I was living with my father.
Tanya
“No money, no food for the children, no diapers – just six children and another on the way.”
Name: Tanya
Age: 44
Rasha
“It felt like I was being torn to pieces!”
Name: Rasha
Age: 14
It was a black day. When I got home there was a strange woman there. They held me down and it hurt. It felt like I was being torn to pieces!
The way I feel now is that not everything that people say is true and real, grown-ups don’t know everything. Some of them don’t know anything.
It was done so that we girls will grow up quickly and become modest. But we aren’t modest, we’re just scared.
Rafaela
“He’s changed. He’s a new man and I love him.”
Name: Rafaela
Age: 24
I broke up with him several times and went back to live with my mother, but I always went back to him. He was so full of regret, and I love him.