My mother made me spend the day with her one day because she was home alone.
While we were playing together, she suddenly took off all her clothes.
“Come here,” she said.
“Take off your clothes.”
sexual violence, child molestation, sexuality, masturbation

I was still in my first year of highschool.
I was in the metro, and it was really crowded.
Someone came and stood really close behind me.
I was so anxious and confused that I wasn’t able to say anything.
gender violence, sexual violence, harassment, public transportation

He was my father’s age,
I met him at Ramses station on my way back to Minya.
He was a professor at Ain Shams University,
And he treated me like a daughter.
He used to call me at my parents’ house to check if I needed anything.

They told me it was a game.
A game that everyone played.
They wanted to see who was the best one at it.
I was very naive.
Day after day, we’d go into the room and they’d choose one of us to “play” with.
Day after day, we explored each other through this game.
Day after day, I’d enter the apartment with excitement to start playing the game.

I was six or seven years old.
Mama wanted me to learn a musical instrument, so I chose the piano.
She looked for a place that could teach me and found an instructor at the club.
They arranged for me and my brother to take lessons with him.

I remember I went to visit my aunt the morning after her wedding.
Everyone was in the bedroom talking about it.
Everyone would enter and look at the great wonder.

I was making my way out of the Ramses metro station—I lived in Shubra at the time.
I was wearing a maxi skirt and a long sleeved shirt, and my hair was tied back into a bun.
I look disheveled. 
gender violence, sexual violence, social pressure, public transportation

Mama was paranoid about harassment.
She thought it was everywhere.
She wanted to protect me.

I got married after a 6-year love story.
He was everything to me.
I insisted on him, despite the large socio-economic gap between us.
“He won’t be able to support you on that salary. They’re not like us,” my family said.
gender violence, sexual violence, marriage, divorce

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