I was harassed more than once.
I think I was in fourth grade the first time it happened.
I was on my way home with my little sister.
I sat beside someone.
He had a strange vibe.
I didn’t want to sit next to him,
I was in third grade, and there was this little shop near school whose owner always called me "sweetheart" whenever I'd pass by.
There was an uproar on Facebook a while back over the group rape of children at a school.
The children were forcefully gathered and put together in one place.
It’s said that they were put on the roof once, and in the school theatre another time.
There were a lot of rumors surrounding the incident,
So it wasn’t clear what exactly happened.
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.
When I was ten years old,
The sheikh called me to him and took me inside a closet,
Where he touched my private parts.
If only my mother had explained why she had warned me,
And what could have happened to me,
I certainly wouldn’t have gone.
gender violence, sexual violence, child molestation
I was molested by my father when I was a child.
My father was the first person to touch me.
I used to tell myself that I was imagining it.
When he’d touch me with his leg from behind,
I’d tell myself he was just being playful.
In 2002 I was raped by my uncle for three consecutive months.
I was a 12-year-old girl. He was 54.
This happened inside my room at my parents place every day in the three months of the summer vacation.
sexual violence, child molestation, trafficking, rape, family
My mother used to always take us to school in a taxi,
Because she’d worry about us.
She wasn’t feeling well one day,
And she made our big brother take us to school.
When we got on the bus,
We found our neighbor.
He called for me and my sister,
And he made me sit on his lap because it was crowded.
gender violence, sexual violence, child molestation, harassment, the street, public transportation