Investigation: Haitham Al-Sharif
24-12-2018
“When I found out my brothers’ plan to murder and bury me in the mountain to quash the rumours about willingness to elope with a young man, I felt scared and threatened; and I ran away.” Batool (an anonymous), 20-year-old woman, recalled the violence that pushed her feet to a shelter.
The young woman has just finished her first year at the university. While she was still in high school, she met a young man from a near village through the social media. She sent him her pictures, and then met him in a public park. Ever after, she has never met him willingly. Being blackmailed by the man to send the pictures to her brothers although she had her headscarf on in those pictures, Batool went with everything he said out of the fear of her family’s reaction.
‘I felt like he wanted something more. Every time I decided to tell the truth, fear tied my tongue. I thought I would lose my education or my life.’ She recalled, ‘all went ok until my neighbour spotted us, and told my parents. I was grounded home for a whole month. I could not even go to school. I could have been denied my right to pursue my study at the universitywithout my mother’s intervention.’
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