I tried to disappear. First in Dundee, then in London, where I signed on as a homeless person. Each time I moved, my uncles tracked me down and threatened to kill me if I didn’t go back to my parents.
I was exhausted, and had nowhere to run, but the night I returned one uncle put his hands around my throat and hissed that he’d happily serve 20 years for killing me if I pulled a stunt like that again.
From the day we arrived [in Pakistan] I was bombarded with pressure to marry a man I was distantly related to on my father’s side: uncles and grandparents, calls from Scotland. I was made to feel as if this was something I had to do to compensate for the shame of running away.
The first time I saw this man was at the ceremony. On our wedding night he raped me. When I told my mother this the next day she said, “It’s the husband’s prerogative if he wants to have sex.” “He became controlling and violent. I had to dress in a hijab, behave like a good Pakistani housewife, even though I was tired from going out to work every day.
My mum told me to make my marriage work or to get divorced and marry an older man. She said, and I remember this clearly, “You’re damaged goods now. No one else will want you.” I slashed my wrists across, the way they show it on TV dramas, and I just sat there, crying.
Narrative provided by Karma Nirvana and featured in The Telegraph in an article ‘Forced marriage: the survivors' tales’ by Sally Howard. Photo by Kate Peters.
