Three years ago, on an ordinary afternoon, my maternal cousin, a year older than me and studying in Kabul, came to meet me outside my madrasa and offered to walk me home. We were both happy to see each other, unaware that this would be the last time we met as cousins. For the “crime” of talking and walking together, the Taliban arrested us. By nightfall, our marriage had been forced upon us inside a police station, and we were sent to my aunt’s house as bride and groom.
We were lost in conversation when a harsh voice froze us in place. I turned to see several armed Talibs, dressed in mismatched military clothes, white turbans, whips in hand, standing behind us. One of them asked who the boy was. “My cousin,” I answered. “Are you married to him?” he demanded. I was so terrified I could not lie. They ordered us into their vehicle. My cousin pleaded, insisting we had done nothing wrong, and I cried, but they would not let us go. At the station, after endless questioning, they summoned our families.
Seeing my uncle at the police station is a memory I cannot erase. The Taliban told our relatives that we must be married immediately, and if they refused, they would marry me to one of their fighters. “This girl has come of age,” they said. “She must marry.”
My uncle had raised me and my sister, and I loved him like a father. But that day he did not look at me. He believed I had dishonoured the family. I cried and begged them not to force the marriage, to at least let us be engaged for a few years. No one listened.
That night, still in my school clothes and a chadari my future father-in-law threw over my head, I became a bride at gunpoint. There was no wedding dress, no ceremony, no companion beside me. Nothing that makes a girl feel like a bride. My new father-in-law dragged us home with insults, and my uncle left me with curses.
I am 18 years old and the mother of two small children now. I was three and a half when my father died in a traffic accident. My mother became a widow at 24, and my uncle took in my sister and me despite barely being able to feed his own family of eight.
Before we could learn to live with the loss of our father, cruel customs also took our mother from us. Because she and my uncle were not mahram, my maternal grandfather forced her to return to his home, leaving us behind. When I was five, he married her off again.
After that, my biggest dream was to go to school, study hard, and become a doctor. I wanted to fill the emptiness of my childhood with education. I worked tirelessly and studied until ninth grade. But when the Taliban returned to power, like thousands of other girls, I was confined to my home.
When our province fell, we fled to Kabul. I searched everywhere for a way to continue my studies, but aside from religious schools, there was nothing for girls. Since I could read the Qur’an, I enrolled in a madrasa to pursue religious studies.
My mother’s family had cut ties with us after her remarriage. The only place I ever saw any of them was my grandfather’s house. That day, seeing my cousin on the road felt like a small happiness, a chance to ask about my mother’s family. I did not know how quickly that moment would turn into catastrophe.
At my aunt’s house, now also my mother-in-law, I was expected to bake bread in the scorching tandoor. I had no skill. One day, after burning the bread, she slapped me and said, “Marriage isn’t easy.” She, too, resented having a daughter-in-law brought into her home without choice or ceremony.
Three years have now passed since that forced marriage. I have a son and a daughter, born one year apart. They, too, are victims of a marriage neither parent wanted and neither was ready for. We are still too young to understand how to be proper parents; we argue and fight over everything.
My mind is constantly trapped in the memories of my losses. My husband, robbed of his own childhood, often says he wishes he had never seen me on that road. I am trapped in a life with no escape and no strength left to endure it. The dream of studying, saving myself, helping my sister, and building a life with my mother has turned into something forever out of reach.
While writing from Iran, Porshang (pseudonym), a freelance writer, recorded the story of one of her relatives in Afghanistan.
