Child Marriage in Bangladesh
Last night I dreamt of myself again. This time, I was in a surgery room attending to a patient who was involved in a car accident. The atmosphere in the room was tense and everyone was a little bit nervous, but I was relaxed because I knew what I was doing and I felt comfortable, as if it was where I belonged. Just as I was about to finish the last couple of stitches on the patient’s chest, I woke up to the sound of her, the sound of my daughter crying, and then I remembered – this is my reality.
I hurried to where my daughter was sleeping to shush her before my husband could wake up. Usually when she cries like this, he shouts at me, accusing me of not taking care of her properly and bothering him. I grab her quickly and step outside. It’s only around 6AM but I know I’ll need to get started on the housework soon before my mother in-law starts yelling at me. I feed Noor quickly and carry her to start making the walk to get our water. On the way, I see Fatema walking with a bucket and her two little boys running around her. I call over to her and we walk down together. She tells me she is pregnant again and hopes it’s a girl this time, but she’s tired and her body has started to ache all over. I understand, I tell her. We reminisce about our old days, the days at school playing with Majeda and Arifa, and although the memories are happy ones, I am not. All I can feel is sadness, sadness about how my childhood ended too quickly and the dreams I had to give up, the betrayal from my family, and my life now. I am trapped.
We collect our water and part ways. When I reach the house, I notice he is still sleeping, so I put Noor down quietly and start outside. I sweep the ground, wash our clothes, hang the clothes, mop the tiny kitchen, scrub the table, prepare the breakfast, and then he wakes up. I put his food on the table immediately the way his mother taught me, and I leave the room. I hate being around him. I am constantly in fear that he will hit me again, like he has done countless times before. He speaks to me as if I am his slave, he takes advantage of me, and beats me. I don’t know why my parents chose him. They said that he would protect me, but I want to be protected from him. They said he would let me continue my education, but he laughed in my face when I asked him. “There is no need for that”, he said. They told me that my children would bring me happiness, and that was true, but looking at Noor grow up so quickly in front of my eyes only makes me fear for her future, fear for how he will probably send her away as my parents sent me to him on my 13th birthday. I was only 13.
Today is my daughter’s first birthday and I am now 14 years old.
I only ever feel at ease in my dreams when I imagine how I wish my life would have been. My childhood was taken away from me, I’m still a child! The only friend I still have is Fatema, I have no freedom, I am constantly being looked at and criticized by my mother-in-law who thinks that I’m not good enough for her perfect son.
How am I going to continue living like this?
All I have now is Noor, and today, on her birthday, I made a promise to her. I promised her that I would never let her be where I am now. I know she is only one, but I always whisper words of encouragement to her, I tell her about my hopes and what I did in my dreams, hoping that it would somehow make her reach them. I want her to learn and achieve her dreams and become the person I always wanted to be. But then again, how can she?
She is stuck in this painful cycle, just like me.