Isn’t the jaw-dropping story of my life emotive? I cannot shout my pain, my sorrow and my depression. I swallow the strong burst of my feelings and suppress my sobs with tearful and sparkling eyes. I must conceal the drops of tear roll down my cheek. Rage and hatred surge up inside me and I am smoldering with burning flames behind a closed door. The dragon of life never stops biting me. I am stung with this deafening silence and I need a shoulder to cry on.

I am a girl. If you study my life in history, I was buried alive. When my mother was giving birth to me, my father’s face was turning black with anger and hatred. To my mother’s unmitigated chagrin, he was burying me alive in a dark grave with no iota of mercy! Can you imagine this cruelty? Of course, he was paying no attention to my mother’s tears and cries.

Now, I love my father staunchly. I alleviate his anger and anguish with sympathy. As a daughter, I feel obliged to do him favor and to answer his anger with smile. But when I talk he rolls his eyes asking me to bite my tongue. I am not more than a stupid person to him. My small mistake is answered with punches and kicks. He always stings me with foul languages and treats me as a highly hated pariah. To my consternation, he behaves with my brother otherwise. He talks with him with smiles and happiness, respecting him as if he is a superior creature of God. When I see the two paradoxical types of treatment, I wish I was a boy.

I am not jealous of my brother. I adore him and treat him with deep affection. When he is angry I pacify him with sisterly sincerity. Even I hardly ever eat meal without him. But his mistakes give me the creeps. If he commits crime, he jeopardizes my life. I am revenged for being his sister! For instance, if my brother does an honor-killing action to an innocent girl, I am sacrificed for the action and the victim’s family does the same thing to me! However I shriek that it is not my fault, but they never listen. Don’t you think that it is injustice?

My husband treats me with more cruelty. Whatever I speak, I must eat my words with his askance look. My husband along with my in-laws tortured me in a dark cellar where nobody could hear me. They pulled my nails, speared me and gave me electric shock inhumanely. They never cared about my painful tears, weeping and shrieking which could touch the heart of stone! I found them real monsters.

My sisters are suffering the same maltreatments. A sister of mine, Shakila, is sustaining serious injuries for being shot on the face by her husband. Some days ago, another sister of mine Sitara, who lives in Herat province, fell victim of her husband’s cruelty. Believe it or not, her nose, ears and lip were cut by her husband.  

I cannot believe my ears whenever I hear about the heartbreaking stories of women. For instance, some days ago a 19-year-old woman, Maryam, was found dead in Herat province. It was said that she was suffocated with a rope by her father. The reports are replete with tragic violence against them; they are hanged on trees, flogged or stoned in desert courts, mutilated and murdered in most tragic ways.  

The traumatic actions done by men put their humanity under questions. It is so mind-boggling for me that how they have the heart of doing the cruelty in the worst possible way. How they dare shed the blood of humankind without a tinge of human feeling! How is it possible that the oozing blood of innocent human cannot touch them! No, I cannot believe that they are human. They are the bloodthirsty monsters who prey upon the blameless people.

What shall I do with the nightmare which is haunting my mind? Whenever, I see a bulky man with long mustaches and furious eyes, I shiver with fear and I murmur with myself, that is it and I am gone! Their smile seems insincere grin to me! Every man’s face reminds me the angry face of my husband, father or…. I cannot stop picturing the ugly faces of those who tortured me. In other words, with such cruelties I cannot imagine a human in its true sense and whoever I see I think that they are void of humanity. The melancholic and nightmarish feelings do not leave me alone. I am afraid of my shadow because there I see the sinister face of the cruel humans.

Is it really the same what I see or I am just afflicted with a disease? Please tell me, do you also see the world a dark and moonless night? Does the world also seem to you a zoo with wild animals? Do you also think that humanity is dead thousand years ago in this world? What about in your neighborhood, do they also treat women the same as in ours? Do they???

Let me tell you one last story about my life. I am fond of learning and getting education. I was going to school with a group of my school-fellows. One day on the way to school, a bearded man with long mustaches, red eyes, blackish face and big black turban approached us and sprayed corrosive acid on our faces. He threatened us this way not to go to school for being girl. His group, called Taliban, burnt down our schools. They say that getting education is not allowed for girls.

Such violence and maltreatments are going on in our daily life. People hate us because we are girls. They think of us as inferior creatures therefore, they torture us painfully and cut our noses, ears and lips and kill us! I have told the sad story of my life for you to have mercy on us. Please don’t hate us; we are your daughters, sisters, mothers and wives. We are the same creature as you and not inferior. Please don’t hate us and stop violence against us. Please treat us the same us Holy Prophet with kindness, respect and honor. Please don’t hate us; we are the same as you. I am the same as my brother.