Zohal’s Flight to Safety
Zohal was born in a poor family in a village near Kabul. She and her sister grew up without their father. They grew up without love or education, without hope or dreams. When she was a young girl, Zohal’s...
Zohal was born in a poor family in a village near Kabul. She and her sister grew up without their father. They grew up without love or education, without hope or dreams. When she was a young girl, Zohal’s...
Maryam was born in a dark period of her family’s life. Her mother died when she was a child and her father forced her to marry a man when she was thirteen years old. Her father was paid a...
This story is written for my relative Nilab, an unlucky girl who was born to family that already had six daughters at home. Nilab’s parents didn’t want her and sent her to live with her grandparents and aunts. She...
In the Daykundi province in the center of Afghanistan lived a woman named Rahima who had three sons and a beautiful daughter. Each day she kneaded bread in the early morning for fifteen people in the family, then went...
Afghanistan has many traditions that allow families to marry their daughters at young ages without their consent. For example, there is a tradition in some provinces that allows families to engage two children even before their birth. Called Naami...
Early marriage has many negative effects on families, but unfortunately most of the negative effects apply to the young girl’s life. Young girls face various physical and mental problems due to early marriage because they don’t have the experience...
One afternoon after Fershta and her sisters returned home from school, their father told them he had decided to sell them, one by one, by having them engaged to be married. The family’s economic situation was very bad so...
Several years ago in Pakistan in 2002, I taught fourth grade at a school in an Afghan camp. The school was supported by a German organization called GTZ. For several years before that I ran a project in Khyber...
I was sixteen years old. In my mind I could hear: “Tonight commotion is in my mind, tonight light is in my heart”—the song by Iranian singer Shakila who I loved listening to. Every evening, the nightingales in the...
There is always news about Afghanistan on the Yahoo site and recently when I checked the site, a light blue title caught my attention. The news was about a six-year-old Afghan girl who was going to have to marry...