Friday, July 1, 2011

The following story was taken from Gawaahi.
Here is the original link:


"I still ask myself why was I so stupid. There was nothing special about him. He was just another boy.
For him, she was the one he would marry. It wasn’t that he loved her, it was because he felt safe with her, he said.
She wasn’t the prettiest girl around. In fact, he often told her she should cover her face with a brown bag. She didn’t have the courage to talk back, or retaliate. It didn’t matter what he did — whether he yelled at her, abused her, or shoved her hand in the frying pan, she stayed with him.
When did it start? On the day of the nikah. The rukhsati was to be 6 months after.  There I was, sitting on the stage smiling away, oblivious to the nightmare that was going to change my life forever.
The day I retaliated, he used the only way he saw fit to keep me in his control. As he said, he ‘branded’ me. The rukhsati had not happened, but I was married to him. It was marital rape. How could a person I gave everything, subject me to this? I felt that my integrity was shattered. I lost my faith, my respect, my dignity. I wasn’t pure anymore. I was ashamed. But above all, I lost my will to stay in a relationship with a monster. I walked out.
I kept it a secret, and filed for a khulah (divorce initiated by the wife) much to the dismay of my family, and I hadn’t even told them the whole truth. I knew that if I did, they would do anything in their power to send me back to him. After all, who would marry me now? I would never get a decent proposal if anyone discovered that I had lost my virginity.
I am glad that I didn’t tell anyone the actual reason for the khulah. Pity is all I would have gotten. I would have been shunned from society.  Oh, wait. I did get all that by being a divorcee.  Being twenty-one and divorced isn’t easy. Imagine what being twenty-one, divorced and a rape victim would have been like.
It’s been almost three years, but I still have nightmares.  I can’t say anything to defend myself. It was my fault. The decision had been mine. The mistakes had been mine too.
My point is that people like me don’t speak up about marital rape because of the pressures of society. Instead of punishing the rapist, it is the victim who is subjected to torment. Everyone makes mistakes, but women are blamed for their own mistakes as well as those of others."

This is what I was talking about when I spoke about this girl.

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