Alina, Kyrgyzstan

Laia Abril, On Rape, 2022

Narrator: I saw my husband for the first time on my wedding day. His friends drove me to him. I thought I wasn’t going to be able to handle it as I was furious with him, I loved another man and dreamed of becoming his wife. Instead I was forced to marry the man who had kidnapped me. At first, when I confronted him he was silent, then he apologised. My sister had also been taken in the past but had run away. My religious ceremony [nike] was organised very quickly and officially registered immediately so that I couldn’t withdraw from it. Before that, I was a 21 year old student in my fourth year at Arabaev University. I wanted to be a fashion designer. During the holidays I went to visit my family. I didn’t want to stay alone in the residency, fearing I might suffer the same fate as my sister; so I travelled on New Year’s Eve. I remember happily baking the day before, then I went to visit my sister and on the way home I was ravished. When my family arrived at the kidnapper’s home, my mother wanted to bring me back but my grandmother asked me not to disgrace my family, especially after my sister had run away and people in the village had talked about it for a long time. I began crying, but my grandmother begged me to stay there.

So I did.