I have known Rana since childhood. She was our neighbor, and our childhood years passed in the same alley. We grew up together and shared memories from the simple days of our youth. She was a calm, beautiful girl with long, blonde hair that reached her waist. Her image, with that same calm face, remains in my mind. But Rana’s life changed very quickly. When her family married her off to a man, she was only 16 years old, a man many years older than her who had been married before and whose children were nearly the same age as Rana.
From that very day, a girl who still needed love and support entered a life that was full of fear and suffering for her. Her husband’s first wife made life harder for Rana through her words, accusations, and behavior, and her husband also treated her violently on many occasions. Sometimes, when she saw me, she could no longer hide her pain. She would sit beside me, cry, and talk about her difficult days. I would listen to what she said, but at that time,e I did not know how much exhaustion and hopelessness lay hidden behind those tears. Until one day, news arrived that Rana had set herself on fire. I could not believe that the same girl I had grown up with for years was no longer among us. I rushed to their house. People had gathered, and the atmosphere of the house was filled with silence and grief. I entered Rana’s room, a room that no longer held the sound of her laughter or her cries. Her long braid of hair, once part of her beauty, was stuck to her body, and seeing that scene was something I could never forget.
Years have passed since that day, but I still sometimes think of Rana and ask myself what could lead a young girl to such an end. In those days, different things were said among people. Some believed that Rana had done this under the pressure of years of suffering and violence, while others said that perhaps her husband’s first wife had played a role in what happened. The truth of what took place in that house was never made clear to me. But what I know is that Rana’s suffering was not related to just one day. She had lived for a long time with fear, loneliness, and violence that had slowly worn her down from within. Perhaps the answer to what happened to Rana in that house will never be found, but the memory of that girl, with her calm face and long hair, has remained in my mind forever, a girl who perhaps wanted, many times, to have her voice heard, but who was silenced before anyone understood the depth of her pain. And the question remains: how many more girls must fall victim to forced marriages and lives in which the right to choose and the chance to breathe are taken from them?
You can read the Persian version of this report here:
