A Woman’s Flight from Iran

By Zohreh Amir Mojtahedi

For a long while I had felt absolutely helpless. I had reached a point of impasse. I had run out of the will to live. I could not divorce him for fear of not seeing my children again. Life had become unbearable. I was longing for life. I wanted to lead a normal life, like everyone else. I desperately wanted to live like a human being not so much for myself, but mainly for my kids.

I had struggled with myself for a few years. One day I decided that enough is enough. I said to myself ‘Zohreh get up; there must be a way to have a better life somewhere on this planet.’ And when I looked into the mirror a stream of warm tears soaked my face - tears of years of suffering and degradation. Only the night before last, he pushed me against the wall and started beating me. I could still feel the full weight of his belt on my cheeks. Under a barrage of lashes, I was only focusing on sending my little son out of the room. He was so shocked that had become motionless. He was not even crying.

I was only 14 when I was forced into marriage. I was so young that took my toys with me to my husband’s house. After all these years I wake up in the middle of the night drenched in sweat from the nightmare of the night that my soul and body were raped. This was an Islamic marriage. It took a long time to surrender to this fate and stop fighting. My war shifted to an inner war with myself. A fierce war was raging. My spirit was urging me to fight on and not to give up. My battered face and body and soul were not ready to surrender. One day when he unleashed his hate with a barrage of kicks and punches on my body with my son around, I was full of fear and anger and decided that it was time to do something.

That day as soon as my husband left for work, despite a splitting headaches and pain I went to see a close friend and she agreed to help me escape. I needed a lot of money. Secretly I sold my wedding jewellery and my friend offered to lend me money. It took two months to get a passport and the smuggler to arrange our departure. The night before our departure we stayed at my friend’s with my three and seven year old children. My seven-year-old son was very worried and warned me against his father finding out about our plans.

Early in the morning we went to Mehrabad airport and managed to pass the two checkpoints. The smuggler who was closely watching me approached me and said that everything had gone smoothly. A few hours later we arrived at Frankfurt Airport and he hired a taxi and took us to a place where asylum seekers were registering. We presented ourselves and were allowed to stay the night. For the first time in life my heart was pounding with joy. The next day while sitting in the canteen, I overhead a conversation: ‘this is a very strong case to apply for asylum. In a society where women are treated inhumanely…’ I immediately turned around and went towards her. She stood up and introduced herself. “ I am an activist of the Federation of Iranian Refugees and the Worker-communist Party of Iran. We shook hands and started talking.

With the help of the Federation I managed to obtain permission to stay in Germany and discover myself. I now know the causes of all that happened to my children and I. My newly found consciousness will lessen the pain of my wounds.

The above was first published in Persian in Hambastegi Haftegi number 1 dated June 1, 2001.