Shattered Lives

Friday, December 14, 2007

By Becky Weaver, Langley High School (City of Pittsburgh Schools)

  You wake up each morning to the sound of your alarm clock, its annoying buzz informing you that it’s time to start a new day; she wakes up to the sound of gunfire outside her home. You decide what to wear each day and often complain about not having enough clothes; she is forced, by law, to wear the same thing each day: a long piece of fabric that covers her entire body. You drag yourself to school and work, wishing you could be anywhere else; she mopes around, a prisoner inside her own home who wants nothing more than to be able to go to school or work. You break the rules and are punished with a detention; she breaks the rules, and it may cost her her life.

Every day, these small liberties are taken for granted here in the United States of America, but the sad reality is that many women across the globe are denied precious freedoms that we enjoy without appreciation. Sometimes it takes some insight into the lives of others to make us aware of how lucky we truly are to live in a free country, and the books Sold by Patricia McCormick and My Forbidden Face by Latifa are great examples of books that do just that. 

My Forbidden Face is a true story written from the point of view of a sixteen-year-old girl who lived under the Taliban regime in Afghanistan. It takes place between the years of 1996, when the Taliban first took the city of Kabul, and 2001, when the United States went to war against the Taliban and all terrorism. During these years, Latifa (a pseudonym the author uses to protect her real name and her family in Afghanistan) was trapped inside her own home; she was forced to sit back and watch as her rights, the rights of all women, were taken away. She could no longer attend school, work, wear anything other than her chador (special clothing made to cover all of a woman’s body), or enjoy any of the freedoms she’d known before the invasion of the Taliban. Finally, she gathered the courage to flee Afghanistan and go to France.  There she and her mother were interviewed on the lives that were stolen from them, hoping desperately that their story would motivate people to help their cause. With the help of the United States’ war on terror, the Taliban have been greatly reduced in Latifa’s country, and she hopes to soon be able to return to a free Afghanistan.

 

 

Sold is the fictional story of Lakshmi, a thirteen-year-old girl who is sold by her family into prostitution. Lakshmi’s family, financially ruined by a combination of her stepfather’s bad gambling habit and a devastating rain storm, is in dire need of more money. Her mother and stepfather sell her to a strange woman who offers her a job as a housemaid, promising that her earnings will save her family from their difficulties. Upon her arrival, she finds that her fate is not to be a simple housemaid but to be the newest addition to a brothel known as “Happiness House.” But despite her painful experiences, Lakshmi remains strong and hopeful, and eventually triumphs over the hardships she is forced to endure. Lakshmi tells her story through a writing style known as vignettes- short scenes that focus on one event at a time. McCormick says she chose this writing style because “it portrays what is a fragmented-if not shattering-experience.” Her use of this style makes Sold a fairly fast read, but it is an incredibly powerful story nonetheless.

Though Lakshmi’s story is fictional, nearly 12,000 young Nepali girls are sold by their families into sexual slavery each year. McCormick made sure she did her research to ensure the realism of the tale; she traveled to Nepal, speaking to aid workers, families, and even survivors of this terrible fate to learn the truth behind the sales of children into the sex trade.

Sold and My Forbidden Face are both touching tales of strong young girls who face unbearable suffering and triumph over it. Latifa and Lakshmi overcome all of the difficulties in their lives, giving hope for women who are oppressed in countries all over the world. Stories such as these really do happen. Hopefully someday all women will have freedom like we have here in America, freedom that Latifa and Lakshmi fought for. For now, though, we can read their stories and learn from them.