Free Kids of Kabul by Deborah Ellis Page A

to be paid.
    Another man came to my father and said he would pay the shopkeeper. In exchange for doing that, he wanted me to be his wife. I was very young.
    I did not know anything about this. No one talked to me about it. I was brought to Kabul to this man’s house. I thought he was my uncle. That’s how he was introduced to me. He was very old, an old man.
    He showed me a white dress and asked me, “Do you like this dress?” I did and I said so. Then he said, “If you like it, put it on. Let’s see how you look in it.”
    So I put it on. Then they put some papers in front of me and put my thumb on a pad of ink. Then they put my thumbprint on the paper. And with that, I was married.
    I was not allowed to go home after that. I belonged to this old man and I had to do what he said. I was so surprised that all this was happening. I thought I was in a bad dream, that my life could not be this.
    If he wanted a nice, quiet wife, he did not get one. I was angry and scared and I missed my mother. I cried a lot. Then he would beat me for crying and I cried some more.
    My husband’s family would not let me see anyone outside the family. They would not let me see my own mother. When neighbors or other visitors came over, they locked me in a back room and threatened to beat me if I made any noise.
    They said I had to make carpets to be able to earn some of the money it cost to feed me, and to pay back the money my husband had given to my father for his debt.
    There is skill to making carpets. I didn’t know how to do it. They would stand over me and wait for me to make a mistake. They would beat me and say, “Why don’t you know how to do this?” They locked me in the back room and I was not allowed out into the sunshine.
    After a year, my mother came to visit me. When my husband discovered that she was coming, he took a big pair of scissors and cut off my hair. He cut it right off, like I was a boy. He said he did it because it would make me too ashamed to let anybody see me.
    When my mother came, I kept my hair covered. I did not let her know what he had done to me. She told me she was not in favor of this marriage but what could she do? She could not go against my father.
    My father-in-law ordered me to tell her that I was happy with them and did not want to go home with her. I refused to speak. I could not lie to my mother, but I was too scared to say what was really going on. And because I kept silent, they hit and beat me.
    So my mother left without knowing everything that was happening to me.
    It went on and on. The beatings, the hunger, the hard times with my husband.
    I would cry for days at a time. I cried so much my in-laws would go a little crazy with it. It went on and on.
    Finally, one day, when they let me move about more freely so that I could do the chores, I went out into the yard to throw away the garbage. I threw it away and then I kept moving. I ran away. I walked and walked for days and then finally made it home to my mother’s house.
    She had heard about the Afghan Human Rights Commission. Once I told her about what was going on, and how they were treating me, she found out about how to get in touch with them and she took me to see them. They helped me to get into the women’s shelter.
    I had to go somewhere safe and hidden. If my husband or his family knew where I was, they might kill me. I am not saying that just to tell my story. They told me they would kill me if I ran away, that I belonged to my husband now and if I left without his permission it would be like I was stealing from him and that was a crime. And if I ran away it would bring shame to my husband’s family and to my family.
    I didn’t want to shame my family, but in the end I wanted to get away and that was all I wanted.
    I have been in the shelter now for over two years, waiting for a divorce.
    My husband disappeared. He went to some other part of Afghanistan, I think. It is very hard to get a divorce without him. Finally, after