I was on a bus with my mother and older sister.
The bus was empty, but there was a man standing next to me.
I found his penis next to my shoulder.
gender violence, sexual violence, harassment, the street

I was wearing a headscarf and a long, roomy skirt.
I was walking down the sidewalk,
By the walls of the university.
Soldier-like.
At 2 in the afternoon.
I heard someone walking behind me, moaning.

I’m wearing the wrong pants today.
Please, God, divert their attention elsewhere.
I hate them.
I hate my life.

All of a sudden, a car closed in on me, and I fell off my bike.
One of my knees hurt. I decided to walk back to the starting point.
I left the bike with them and turned back.
That’s when the comments started.
“You fell down, sweetheart? I wish I were that bike.”

You mean to tell me if a woman has acid thrown on her in the street and her face is disfigured, then so long as her organs are still functioning, the charge will still be ‘physical assault of a woman?’”

I was sexually harassed inside my house,
By someone very close to me.

I stopped wearing the hijab a few months ago.
Ramadan is approaching and I’m terrified.
I’m afraid of what my family might say.
I’m afraid of what people in the street will say.
social stigma, hijab, hair, harassment, the street, social pressure

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.

I used to hear a lot about harassment but I never imagined it would happen to me.
I was sitting in a microbus when he stuck his arm out from behind me and touched my shoulder.
A little later, he did it again, and when I shouted at him, he said very coolly: "I didn't mean to."

I’ve been subjected to bad things ever since I was a child.
It started with the bullying I’d get at school,
Because of my thin body and dark skin.