Veeda, Afghanistan

Laia Abril, On Rape, 2022

Narrator: When the Taliban seized Kabul in 1996, they barred women from schools and workplaces, instructing us to wear a burka. Girls who had illicit relationships were publicly flogged and then forcibly wed. I was only 13 when I was made to marry the son of a local Taliban commander. Later, after several attempts, I got divorced and became an activist holding secular views on women’s rights. However, fundamentalist society was still alive. After finishing my studies I got engaged again. I only realised how cruel and extremist my fiancé was when he made me quit my job because I was “sparking men’s sexual desires around him”. He was a beast who wanted rough, brutal sex. He constantly abused me, for him his needs and desires were all that mattered. It was not sex, it was marital rape. His monstrous behaviour made me hate myself. He always told me I was neither feminine nor attractive. He wanted me to look and act like a porn star. For six years I was trapped by my husband in my own home − it was slavery − like an animal in a cage. I faced torture and death threats on a daily basis. But I could not file for divorce because in Afghan society it is up to the man to take the first step. Every time I asked I would be beaten up. When I tried to get my parents to convince him, they didn’t believe me, not until one day when my brother spotted him with a knife in his hand, ready to kill me.