Story of a raped girl

Maryam is from an extremely poor family. Her father and her brother go to work every day but they only manage to bring back money barely enough for a day’s meal. She likes to study. She wants to grow up, and be educated, not just for the sake of it but to support her family as well. So, her father has taken a loan so that she can at least get basic education.

She has to walk to school every day. Every single day, while she passes through a certain neighborhood, she is scared for her life because of the looks that men from that area give her. Like they can see through her shawl and her covered head. Four of them are always whistling and smirking and making kissing noises when she is passing by shouting obscenities like – “hey, come here, sweets, show us your face and body, let us appreciate it” or “ I can’t wait to get my hands on you”. Every day she had to keep herself from running, or shouting at them.

But one day, she couldn’t take it anymore. When she passed through that area, and the people started saying vulgar things, she shouted out – “you guys are mean people. Allah is All-Watching, He will punish you for what you are doing to me, you deserve to rot in Hell” and ran away before any one of them could say anything.

Of course all the men were furious that a 16-year old girl had talked back to them, and furthermore, she had insulted their existence. All of them were bound to take revenge. And one day, they found their way.

One day, the girl was passing through that same neighborhood when those four guys came towards her from behind and put a black cloth on her head and before she knew what was going on, they picked her up and put her in a car and started driving. When she started screaming for help, they just kicked her so hard and beat her up so much that she blacked out.

She came to, hours later, and she realized that she was bleeding from her head and her hands and legs had bruises. She found herself in an unfamiliar, dark and murky room, with only one light bulb hanging from the center of the ceiling. She found herself tied to a chair tightly, and suddenly everything hit her like a rock. She had been kidnapped by the very people who had muttered obscenities while she passed through that neighborhood to get to school. She suddenly got very scared, wondering what they would do to her, wondering whether would get out alive.

While she was thinking, she heard a key rotating in the door’s lock, and the door opened slowly, and all the four men walked in. Their leader, the one with a long beard and evil eyes stepped forward and slapped her hard across the face and whispered in her eyes – “so you think we are all going to hell, you little slut?” She started crying and said “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, please let me go.” The leader, Allahyar, says – “Oh it’s no use now, you whore, you’re going to be sorry you ever said anything to any one of us” and punched her hard in the stomach, which momentarily left her completely out of breath. And then he commands his three followers to start what they came here to do.

Allahyar takes his shirt off and suddenly Maryam realizes what he is about to do. And the horror settles in and she can’t stop screaming and crying, begging them not to do what they are about to do. Allahyar slaps her across the face and puts duct tape on her mouth to muffle her screams. He tears her clothes off and rapes her in a very inhumane way. When he is done, one by one, all the other three have their turn. She keeps hurting and bleeding, but now she is quiet. She doesn’t cry any more. She stares at the ceiling with a blank look on her face, waiting for all of this to be over. Some of the guys have left scratches on her face which bleed, some pulled at her hair, pulling out tufts of it. Some of them slapped her repeatedly, and she has bruises over all of her body. But she doesn’t say anything. She is numb now.

When all of them are done, they look at her in contempt and say – “well, that ought to teach you a lesson. Never ever insult us again, or next time you’ll be even more sorry than you are now. Oh and one more thing. If you ever even breathe a word of this to a single soul, we’ll make sure you die along with all the people you love. And you will be tortured to the most inhumane extent. So, beware.”

They took her back to where they had kidnapped her, and she started limping home, slowly, since she was hurting so much. In between, she even had to sit for a couple of minutes because she could not tolerate the pain any longer. She reached home late at night, with a worried family waiting for her. Seeing her all bruised and tired and in pain, her mother kept asking her what had happened to her. But she wouldn’t tell the truth. She just kept saying she got into a fight and then fell down, which was why she was injured and that she was tired and needed to sleep.

To this day, she has not mentioned of this to anyone. Maybe because she’s scared she’ll have to go through this again or maybe because she is scared that her loved ones are in danger if she speaks of it. Her life is a scarred one. Everywhere she looks, she sees those four guys looking at her and smirking at her. At night, even after so many years, she has nightmares of the day she got raped. But she will not tell anyone. She will take it with her to her grave.