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.