I grew up in a backwards southern town so small that new ideas flee from it in fear of suffocation, in a broken home full of violence, poverty, addiction, neglect, molestation and willful ignorance.

I was living with my father the summer I turned 14, when one of his closest friends began grooming me. When my father found out I was being sexually abused by his friend, he threatened to kill me, accusing me of ruining his friendship. I hid in a closet all night, and in the morning, my mother came and took me home with her.

The relationship continued while I lived with my mother. Though we moved often, he continued to visit us under the guise of being a generous family friend. He paid for us to have a telephone in the house and would send me money for food or clothes. He paid for our electricity and bought me a car when I turned 16.

At 16, I accidentally got pregnant. It was an ectopic pregnancy, and I was told I would die unless I had an emergency surgical abortion to remove the fetus from my fallopian tube. My abuser reminded me not to tell anyone at the hospital about us and not to call him for a little while in case someone was watching.

Afterward, I became depressed and refused to do go back to school, so my mother called my abuser and threatened him with exposure unless he “made it right.” The three of us went to the courthouse in Northwest Florida to get a marriage license. It took less than 15 minutes to fill out the paperwork. Though the age difference made our relationship a felony, I never spoke to a judge, and no one did anything to intervene. On the way home, we stopped at a thrift store and bought a wedding dress. That afternoon, our family pastor married us in my grandparents’ living room. I was 16; he was 44.

I couldn’t enroll myself in high school because I was a minor, so my husband had to sign as my legal guardian. I tried to go, but he made it difficult. Every day when I returned, he would interrogate me until I was too tired to keep defending myself for my imaginary sins. By the time I was 17, I was a mother and a high school dropout. I started to feel the edges of the trap I had walked into.

I ran away several times, but usually never got much farther than the next rest area on the highway. I’d always return, begging forgiveness and promising to be a better wife and mother, anything he wanted, if he would just take me back.

I would sit in the dark closet, cradling his gun in my hands, alternating between pressing it against my throat or my temple. I watched his slow breathing from the shadows, wondering if there would be any end to the nightmare. I imagined myself turning the gun toward him and pulling the trigger, wondering if the world would see me as a hero, or if I would become the monster.

I knew I had to leave, but I didn’t know how. I had little education, no money or job and, worst of all, nowhere to go. I looked for work, but I had an infant and a toddler, and daycare cost more than I could make on minimum wage. So, when a Navy recruiter asked me what I was doing with my life, even though I knew nothing of the military, I enlisted. I would have a guaranteed career, health care, training, college benefits and, best of all, I could finally be independent. I signed up that day in secret, and a few weeks later, I shipped out to Chicago to begin my new life.

It wasn’t easy to leave my children behind; it took me many long months to get them back. Ultimately, in exchange for my children and my freedom, I gave my ex everything we owned and agreed never to seek any kind of support from him for myself or for our children.

I moved on and up, eventually moving to Massachusetts with my new spouse and my children. I was able to access mental health resources, and eventually, through many years of difficult work, I began to heal.

For decades, I never told. I kept the silence that I had promised as a love-blind teenager, until a Facebook post came across my feed and changed everything for me.

A local NGO was looking for someone to attend a judiciary hearing and read their statement opposing child marriage in Massachusetts. I couldn’t breathe. What did they mean, child marriage in Massachusetts? I came to this state to raise my children in a kinder place, a place that valued human life. How could this injustice happen here, in this place? I reached out and asked if it would be helpful if I told my personal story instead. I wondered if I could make a difference by spilling my horrible secret, by putting the worst parts of my life on display for strangers, in the thin hope that someone might care. And more importantly, I wondered if I was strong enough, healed enough, resilient enough to get through it intact.

The first time I told my story, I had no experience speaking with, or even meeting, legislators. I tried to explain how parents who loved me decided that marrying me to my abuser was my best chance. How a gifted child was robbed of her childhood and given away to a monster just because she became too difficult to parent. How a pedophile was not jailed for his horrific crimes, but instead rewarded with a bride. The room was silent throughout my speech, and more than one person wiped tears from their face when I sat down. My voice shook and my stomach clenched, but I just kept thinking of the 300,000 children I was speaking up for, and I couldn’t imagine doing anything else, no matter how hard it was.

When I joined this movement, I had no idea that it would take years of advocacy or that I would have to tell my story so often. This work has pushed the boundaries of my resiliency in ways that I had not anticipated. Every testimony brings back new memories that wind their way into my dreams, pulling me back into the nightmare. I sobbed uncontrollably when I watched a child actor portray just a fraction of my experience. But I persisted.

Though we won the fight in Massachusetts, Connecticut and many other states, the work isn’t finished. I have a powerful story, but I want to be more than just a victim. So, I started studying for the LSAT and applied to law schools. Now, I am incredibly proud to be the recipient of a full-tuition merit scholarship to the University of Massachusetts Law School. I have a long, hard road still ahead of me, but the future is bright, and soon, I hope to have the tools to change even more lives for the better.

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Growing up with my mother’s inappropriate and abusive behavior, learning how not to be seen nor heard was my protection. I was able stay invisible for several years as my mother’s outrage and manipulation was focused on my older siblings, until I turned 13 and had my first “puppy love” boyfriend.

Two weeks before Christmas, my mother’s and boyfriend’s whereabouts were unknown. I found out my mother took my boyfriend to a hotel the night before to teach him “how to be a man.” I did not understand what that really meant at the time, but I knew something was not right. The next day, my mother came home as if nothing happened, and I never heard from my boyfriend again.

Then came a notification from the welfare department: I, the youngest, would age out of the system at 14 years old and therefore, she was to seek employment, as her welfare assistance would end. My mother had been on welfare since I was in first grade. Now, I became the center of her anger. After school one day, she had someone I didn’t know drop me off at foster care. I was scared and had no idea what was going on. I was not there long and never found out why I was returned to her, but I figured she placed me in foster care because I was an expense and was no longer going to be a money source.

Not long after my 14^th birthday was the summer before ninth grade. I was excited. Even though I was not allowed to do activities, sports or anything else that would cost money or draw attention to my mother or to our house, I was still excited for the new adventure of high school and the classes into which I could withdraw.

The one friend I managed to have invited me to the local skating rink, which was a hangout for teenagers. I loved to roller skate. My friend and I had a blast meeting new friends our age. A few weeks later, I was allowed to go a second time with this friend. We met with the same new friends. This was thrilling, because I was never allowed to have friends. No one was allowed to come over, nor was I allowed to go to anyone’s house. I met and skated with this boy who was nice to me, but I did not want him to know where I lived because of my mother. However, we exchanged numbers. Big mistake! My mother found the paper with his number on it, and she called him. I thought that was the end of skating and having friends outside of school. Not only was I shocked that she allowed me to go skating the first two times, but to my surprise, she kept allowing me to go. Eventually, I was allowed to talk with this boy on the phone.

One day, my mother took me to Planned Parenthood and had them prescribe me birth controls pills. I did not understand why I was supposed to take these pills, since I was not having sex. But one thing I did not do was question or go against my mother!

She started taking me to other strange appointments. She took me to a cardiologist. I had to do these cardio exercises wired up to a machine with nothing on but my underwear. My mother later told me that I have a hole in my heart, and if I were to get pregnant, I would have a heart attack and die.

My mother then took me to talk to a judge. He asked me questions like whether I was pregnant or did drugs (NO!). She also invited the boy from the skating rink over for dinner on several occasions and, eventually, to spend the night several times. I was only 14 years old, but I knew she was up to no good. My mother always had a hidden plan that she would spring on us at any hour of the day or night.

Feeling uneasy, I called a sibling who had a room for me to stay in. I begged them to come get me and let me stay with them. When my sibling arrived, my mother went crazy — how dare I go against her? That was a beating I still remember years later.

After the dust settled, I found out the boy from the skating rink was 21 years old (seven years older than me) and not the teenager he had pretended to be. My mother then informed me that no one would take me in; my father and our family don’t want me, so I WILL marry this boy, or she would kick me out on the street. Scared of being homeless, I did what she said. I hoped that if I played along, she would move on to the next victim and leave me alone.

I was married in January and turned 15 in February. For a while, I was thankful for my friend-turned-spouse. I would think, “This is my friend, and he saved me from the abuse of my mother,” or at least that was the picture I saw at the time. I did not know any better, nor did I know what was really going on in the background. I was not old enough, wise enough nor educated enough to recognize red flags that an adult would see.

The part of my wedding day I still remember most was seeing only one family member in attendance. After the wedding, I asked why no one else showed up. I was informed that they were only there to make sure I got married. It turns out my mother literally sold me to this man who I believed was saving me. He paid a “deposit” and made monthly payments to my mother. My family member was indeed only at my wedding to make sure I “sealed the deal.”

I ended up getting pregnant and having a child, which is another story all by itself. Eventually, I caught my husband having an affair with my sibling, so I left him.

I was only married two and a half years. With this experience at such an early age, I had to become an adult quickly and learn everything for myself and by myself. Unfortunately, I have made bad choices in my life getting to where I am now. I did not have family, a role model nor anyone I could ask for help or advice. I had to learn by experience. This has put me in survivor mode for over 40 years, and it is exhausting. But I can say I am a survivor. I am strong. For that, I am thankful.

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*At Jen’s request, her name has been changed and the photo used here is not actually of her.

At age 12, I met my now ex-husband, who was 18 years old at the time, in the Pentecostal Evangelical Christian church in Tempe, Arizona that I was born and raised in my entire life.

The church focused on God’s will for your life. We were not allowed to own a TV, watch movies or listen to secular music, and we were discouraged from spending time with others outside of the church for fear of becoming “spiritually compromised.”

When I was 12, my now ex-husband began to show an interest in me, despite the fact he was 18. We began courting each other, and we became physically affectionate when I was 13. During my early teen years, our relationship was facilitated and encouraged by my mother, who would drive me to various sites so we could meet in secret without my father’s knowledge. I believe my mother was using my relationship for her own selfish gratification to increase my parents’ stature in the church.

I graduated high school at age 15, and my mother and ex discouraged me from utilizing the partial scholarship I received from Arizona State University because it would get in the way of God’s plan for my life, and they did not want me to waste time on my education.

He proposed to me when I turned 16, but I sidetracked our marriage plans. I knew I did not want to be with him anymore, much less marry him. Our relationship had an unhealthy parent/child dynamic, and he was very controlling. When I ended the engagement, my parents became really upset; in retaliation, they started making my life at home incredibly difficult and restricted my personal life with friends.

A few weeks after I broke up with my ex, my mother convinced me to go to dinner with him in hopes of reconciliation. On the way home, he parked the car and insisted I have sex with him one more time before we break up, because he deserved it. I repeatedly refused his unwanted advances and was furious that he tried to forcibly have sex with me. He was upset and irrational and begged me to take him back, refusing to believe that I did not want to be with him. I repeatedly told him no; I did not want to get back into a relationship with him, ever. This made him angry; he became violent and started hitting me. I screamed for him to stop, but he wouldn’t. Eventually, he hit me so hard that he knocked me unconscious.

When I came to, he was speeding excessively and driving through red lights and stop signs. I begged him to stop and not to crash the car. He had hit me so hard that I was bleeding from my left eye, and it was swollen shut. Ironically, I began to feel guilty for what I had “caused.” To protect him, we made up a story that we had been jumped by random people in a parking lot. No one questioned why he had not sustained any injuries.

The next morning, my parents forced me to go to church even though I had visible injuries. I called a coworker early that morning and told her what happened. We made plans for her to come get my stuff from my parents’ house that day so I could run away. My dad pulled me out of the morning service and told me that my mom found my bags packed, and they knew I was trying to run away. I told him the truth, and he proceeded to tell me it how it was my fault, how could I not have expected that reaction from him, and I brought this upon myself. He told me I was ruining God’s will for my life and ruining my ex’s destiny with God, as well.

I was done, and I was desperate to get out of my relationship. My co-worker gave me money to buy a plane ticket to Denver, and I immediately ran away from Arizona to my grandmother’s home in Colorado. My grandparents did not approve of the relationship and my parents’ plans to marry me off at such an early age, and they opened their home to me. They wanted me to stay with them and start going to a local college. My parents were insistent that I return to Arizona and forced me to go back about six weeks later.

The day after I returned home, my mother brought my ex to the house to work things out. I felt defeated at this point, realizing that I had exhausted all my resources in attempting to get out of this relationship and conceded to getting back together. I had given up and lost all hope. We were re-engaged, and my mom insisted on a wedding sooner rather than later. We were engaged for six months, and one week after my 17th birthday, I was forced to marry him in the church. My mother had to sign my marriage license because I was not legally able to. My mother signed the paperwork that allowed him to legally continue to statutorily rape me like he had been doing before we were married.

While we were married, he was emotionally, physically, verbally and financially abusive. When he would get mad, he would break household items or my cell phone, and even punched his way through the bathroom door to get to me. I began questioning the ideology and culture of the church I was raised in. I wanted out of it all. As soon as I could financially separate from him at age 20, I quietly left him with the help of one of my brothers and two close friends. I knew that by doing this, I would be reviled and ostracized by my friends in the church community. I also knew my parents would not support my decision. When they found out my younger brother helped me leave my husband, they kicked him out of their house as retribution.

When I filed for divorce, I lost everything. My credit was ruined. I gave him most of what he asked for in the divorce settlement because I just wanted to get as far away from him as I could. I had to get a new job. I was excommunicated from the only church I had known. I lost all my friends, and my family refused to talk to me or even see me. I still have no contact with most of the people I knew for the first 20 years of my life. This experience robbed me of my childhood and my ability to freely express my spirituality.

I am so thankful I was able to escape the emotionally, physically, financially and spiritually abusive relationship that I was forced into. I now reside in California, where I am in a loving relationship and have a family. It still blows me away that my own parents allowed this to happen to me here in the United States of America! No state should allow any child to marry. I have been SET FREE!

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My name is Sara Tasneem, and as a 15-year-old, I was forced to marry a man almost twice my age (he was 28 years old and 13 years older than me).

My father introduced me to my husband-to-be that morning in Los Angeles, and I was told I would marry him that night. After a spiritual wedding ceremony that evening, performed by the leader of the group my father belonged to, I was handed over to my new husband and left in his care. He became my guardian, husband and the father to my children. I lost my childhood, my freedom and myself that night. I would never be the same person again.

Six months after our spiritual ceremony, I was legally married at the age of 16 and pregnant in Reno, Nevada. I spent most of my marriage in California, but none of it felt like a real marriage to me. It began to feel more and more like a prison after our legal marriage. After I had my firstborn, a beautiful baby girl, I started fighting for my own freedom. I fought to go back to school, and I slowly began establishing my own freedom. Seven years after marrying legally, I was able to separate from my ex-husband. I was 23 years old then, and he was 36. He left the marriage and went back to his life with no repercussions, while I was left with the aftermath.

With little education and few means, I had a long road ahead of me. Finding the strength to leave my marriage was difficult, but the hardest part was yet to come. Leaving the marriage was the first obstacle I had to overcome to find my own freedom. Getting a divorce took me three years. I did not have the financial means to hire an attorney, but he did. I did not have the money to fight him in court, and I ended up giving him everything we had, which was not much. He gladly gave me all the debt, which he had racked up over the course of our marriage. He happily left the country and flitted back off to where he came from.

At first, he tried to keep my kids. I had to fight to get them back. That meant an expensive ticket abroad to convince his family to let me have my babies back, who desperately missed me. He became a distant father to my children, who only saw him in the summers if he decided he could afford to send for them. My ex-husband had a hard time keeping a job during our marriage and afterwards, and I was never sure if I was going to receive the minimal child support that I desperately needed. There were times I had to choose between paying for gas to go to work or buying dinner for my kids.

Even after leaving my marriage, I was years behind my peers in education, work experience, mental health and life experience. I had to learn how to navigate life as a single mother, starting from zero. During my marriage, my ex-husband had controlled the finances, and I had never even had my own bank account. Luckily, I had learned to drive at 22, and I had an Associate degree in Culinary Arts by the time I left my marriage. Without these abilities, I am not sure that I would have been able to leave and survive with my kids on my own. I am one of the lucky ones.

Most of the community members I had grown up with shunned me because I had divorced. I was left a shell of human being because of years of physical abuse starting from my early childhood, and from the emotional and sexual abuse I suffered throughout my marriage. I was so used to surviving my circumstances that I no longer knew how to live a life without being scared, anxious, depressed and angry. It took years to overcome the mental obstacles that were holding me back. I suffered from severe and debilitating depression, PTSD and anxiety for years after I left my forced marriage.

My children grew up with a mother who was still in survival mode most of the time. I felt ill-equipped to navigate the adult world most of the time. Despite these circumstances, my children and I found a way to move on and rebuild our lives in California. There are still moments of despair, anxiety and depression that I struggle with, but now I have a support system that helps me to overcome these struggles. I was a lucky one. Many survivors do not have the same support system I had.

My children have grown up to become independent, free-thinking adults and are in charge of their own futures. They have been my motivation to always move forward and to never give up. I wanted to give them a better life than I had, and I am grateful for each day I am able to do that. I’ve spent my life fighting to protect girls from the human rights abuse that I was subjected to. Because of my advocacy and the work of my allies, we are making progress, but I will not rest until every state sets their marriage age at 18 with no exceptions.

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Shortly after my 14th birthday, I laid in my grandmother’s house listening to the yelling and threats coming from my family in the kitchen. What were they going to do with me? Where would I live? Who was going to support me? Someone is pregnant. They kept saying my name, but that can’t be me. I’m only 14; I can’t get pregnant. How do you get pregnant? I’m still playing with Barbie dolls and doing prank calls, so I’m sure they had the wrong person.

A few hours later, the man who called himself my “fiancé” (he put a ring on my finger at 12 and told me I was his, and my mom said I had to do what he told me) came to get me and take me to the doctor. I thought it was, once again, the virginity tests I had been subjected to a few years before. It was so embarrassing during these exams; I would just cover my head with the sheet and think of other things until it was over.

I didn’t even like my so-called “fiancé.” He was 20 and in the Army. He lived in my neighborhood and kept stalking me, telling me I was his girlfriend.

As he was franticly driving me to the doctor, he screamed at me, “Tell them you begged for sex, tell them I fought you off, tell them you pursued me! Tell them anything or I’m going to jail!” He said, “If you have an abortion, they are going to court-martial me, and I’m in jail for 15 years, and I will kill myself!”

I couldn’t let him kill himself; I couldn’t be responsible. He had been pressuring me to have sex since I was 12, but I said no. But one night he laid upon me and, without my consent or knowledge, raped me in the backseat of his car. The pain was horrible, and I was terrified.

Afterward, he berated me. “No one will want you now. You are no longer a virgin. You are just a whore now, so you will need to stay with me, and we will keep this secret together. Don’t tell anyone or you’ll be taken from your family.” The rapes would happen two to three times a week, and I never said a word to anyone.

At the doctor, I sat silent. I was alone. The doctor said, since I was pregnant, I was considered an adult and could make my own choices. My “fiancé” said, “You better tell them you want to marry me, or the state will take you away to a shelter, and you may not survive.” Upon returning home, I told my mom I wanted to get married.

The next day, my “fiancé” and I went to courthouse. We stood before a judge, and he married us. The two secretaries were my witnesses, and no one questioned the 14-year-old crying profusely. When we left, my then-husband said, “Now for sure, you are mine!”

On the way home, he took me to my school and told me to go inside and quit. I was a married woman now, so no need for school. That was the longest walk of my life. Crying, I went in all by myself to withdraw, and no one questioned it.

This started five years of brutal rapes – including one when my daughter was just three days old — mental abuse, physical abuse and neglect. I was stealing wood from the neighbors to heat the house and stealing vegetables at night to feed myself and my children. He withheld even the most basic of necessities like menstrual products, baby bottles, diapers, heat, electricity and food. We lived in a fully electric house once with no electricity. By this time, I had two babies, and maggots and roaches would crawl from the cooler where I stored the baby formula.

All those years I was told, “Well, you got yourself pregnant or you wouldn’t be in this situation.”  I couldn’t get help anywhere. He officially had custody of me since I was married to him, so I had no choices.

After five years, my mother was sick and asked me to move in with her, which is when I left him. But that didn’t last long, and I married the first new guy who came along. By 20, I had three children and an eighth-grade education.

My two former husbands conspired to take my children from me, and the judge took their side since I had no formal education or long-term job. Enter husband number three. He was a friend of the family who had seen what was going on with the courts and my ex-husbands. He promised that if I married him, I would be able to keep my children.

We married the next morning, and everything stopped for a while, until he became abusive. Eighteen months later with three children, 36 dollars, a broken hand and some garbage bags of clothing, we snuck out and left him behind. We moved out of state and hid out for years, as he had told me if I ever left, he would kill me.

I did eventually re-marry again at age 29. We have been together 31 years. I have successfully raised more than six children. I have fought hard and been through many things, some of which I can’t even mention. I have had horrible PTSD, which I worked through with many years of therapy. I have signed up for school multiple times, but each time had to quit, so I still don’t have a degree. However, I have been a three-time successful business owner. I have been a General Manager and District Sales Manager for several large companies and corporations with great success. I am goal-oriented and have always stepped up and done what was required of me.

What did that 20-year-old man take away from that 14-year-old girl? EVERYTHING. He took away my youth, my desire for a successful career, knowledge, travel, identity, respect, and the list goes on. But one thing he never took away was hope: Hope that one day, I will be of some use to someone to help them get to a better life.

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*At Carol’s request, the photo used here is not actually of her.

It was 1982 in Perth, Western Australia.  I was 15 years old and in the Australian Naval Reserve.

My mother had a very hard life with drawn-out agonies from lupus, cancer and abusive relationships; she was tired from all that had happened to her. She just wanted my younger brother and me to hurry up and grow up and alleviate her of the hardships of parenting and motherhood. The best way to obtain this was to marry me off, giving me an early jump start on the path of my own life.

With the American Naval personnel arriving in Perth on aircraft carriers for R&R, there was intermingling of American and Australian troops. This worked well for my mother’s need for me to start a relationship and leave home.

I met a U.S. sailor who was 25 years old and found myself being coaxed by both him and my mother into a relationship that I was in no way, shape or form ready for.

By November of that year, I was in the United States at Whidbey Island, Washington. I was now 16 years old; he was 26.  I am still in disbelief at how easy it was for my mother to get the assistance of the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service and the U.S. Consulate in order to get me a fiancé visa.  I arrived in the U.S. knowing only him.

I was married on December 23rd, 1982. We remained married until 2004, when I was finally able to divorce him. I endured 23 years of horrific abuse, and so did my four children. Nearly two decades later, the damage is still there, due to him exacting parental alienation against me. I have not seen two of my sons in over 13 years. I am also disabled with an autoimmune disorder and PTSD. Our medical community now understands that extreme stress and abuse contributes to autoimmune disorders. Like many others, my multi-layer damage is forever. I now fear what kind of contributing conditions my children will end up with.

Too many rules lacking morality leads to too many broken people, which leads to an unhealthy, drained society.

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Being told who I have to spend the rest of my life with did not make much sense to me. I am my own person with a unique personality that even my parents cannot understand completely. So to have them tell me that they know the kind of person I would be perfect with felt pretty bizarre. An arranged marriage is not a bad thing — if one agrees to it — but I didn’t, and I was being punished for it. My parents said they were doing what was best for me since they were my elders and more experienced, hence, they knew better.

I was emotionally blackmailed by my mother to get engaged to a man who was 13 years older than me. He worked for a company in the United Arab Emirates and made good money, which was very important to my family. After all, he was going to be taking care of all my needs and wishes, and I was to be his perfect, stay-at-home wife who would look after the children he was so eager to have. I gave it a couple of months of talking and getting to know him, but my heart would not settle for him. We were very different; I could see that, but no one else could. They loved him so much, so he had to be my life partner. There was no other choice.

After much thought and debate, I broke off the engagement. Everyone was devastated. Not only did they yell at me and scold me for taking such a huge matter into my own hands, but they also threatened to kick me out of the house  to fend for myself because they did not want to anymore. They even threatened to hurt me if I didn’t agree to patch things up with the family. My family made up excuses for my behavior with the future in-laws so they could forgive me and accept me back into their lives. I couldn’t stop crying. It all felt like a nightmare. I couldn’t go anywhere, I couldn’t call anyone. No one was on my side. I would sleep all day and all night because, at this point, dreams were better than reality.

I had given up until some close friends pushed me to take my life into my own hands. Taking their advice, I called an institution abroad for help. They gave me a call one month before the wedding and told me they could help me get out of Pakistan. With a lot of planning and help from friends abroad, I managed to get my mother to take me to the institution four days before the wedding. They told her to leave and sent me to a secure place until it was time for me to leave Pakistan.

It was a really difficult decision to make knowing my entire family’s reputation and honor was on the line, and they could potentially never speak to me again. That thought hurt so much, but I did what I had to do to stop this forced marriage. Many people told me that I will one day come to regret the decision I made, and on that day, I will break down and apologize to everyone I hurt. It’s been four years since then, and I still have not regretted my decision. I thank God every day for helping me find the strength to do what I had to do for the sake of my future and emotional wellbeing.

Saira now lives in the U.S. and wants to help other survivors of forced marriage like herself.

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*At Saira’s request, her name has been changed and the photo used here is not actually of her.

The day before I made the very risky yet necessary and courageous decision to get myself out of the horrible mess I was in was the day I was sitting in my uncle’s basement pregnant with my second child at just 20 years old. I was trying to persuade my uncle to allow me to get out of my marriage. “The only way you’re going to get out of this marriage is if you die,” he told me.

In January 2003, I was pulled out of school, forced to travel to Pakistan with my uncle and his wife and married to a 25-year-old man I’d never met. I was a 17-year-old high school senior. I was taken out of the country; my uncle and his wife – my legal guardians – told me that we were going to Pakistan to see relatives, but that wasn’t the case. Within a few weeks, I was married off to a complete stranger and left in a foreign country with him and his family.

Like many others, my marriage happened because of a loophole in Maryland’s law which allows minors to get married with parental consent. This is the ugly reality in many U.S. states, where children can get married if they meet their states’ often minimal requirements.

When I broke off my marriage at 20 years old, my first thought was, “I am worthy. My children are worthy. Our lives are worthy.” My second thought was, “Do I really want to live this life? Do I want to be stuck in this torture and abuse forever and raise my children with an abusive father in a toxic environment? No, we deserve better!” I then picked up the phone and cancelled my stranger ex-husband’s immigration process. “He’s not coming,” I said out loud after ending the call, feeling totally confident and powerful. For the first time, I put myself first. I put my children above any cultural honors or false family pride or shame. Raising my children in a dangerous environment was something I could never accept.

Through all of my struggles in my marriage and beyond, I held my head high and put my focus into a very clear and necessary goal: getting my college degree. All I could think of was my degree and finishing it within four years so I could give myself and my babies a real chance at life with all the opportunities that come with a college education.

I would not accept at the time that my situation was far different from all of my friends who didn’t go through a forced marriage at 17, did not have children at 18 and weren’t living in dangerous and toxic environments. Deep down, though, I knew the reality of my situation. Maybe I just didn’t want to accept the fact that the obstacles of my current situation might stand in the way of obtaining a college degree. Maybe I was very ambitious about what I wanted for the sake of myself and my babies. So that’s exactly what I did. I went against all the odds and graduated with my bachelor’s degree in five years.

I was so proud of myself for dealing with my situation in a positive way. I took it as a challenge. I did what it took to get through and graduate, even if it meant taking several trips from the daycare to my university (a 35-minute drive each way) just to feed my newborn daughter because she would not drink out of a bottle. Even if it meant requesting my professors (a BIG thank you, if you’re reading this) allow me to bring my kids to classes, or staying up most nights to complete assignments and study for exams with two babies demanding attention. Even if it meant juggling college, my children, fighting for my divorce from a stranger from another country and working several jobs with no time for anything else. I kept moving forward with the drive not to become just another statistic; the drive to give my children the best life I could possibly give them, where they would be healthy, happy, safe, supported and free; the drive to live the life I truly deserve and give my children the life they deserve.

I further broke cultural and religious barriers due to the abuse my children and I were experiencing at the hands of my guardians. I made the decision to move out of my uncle’s basement with both of my kids at almost 30 years old and into my own place, where I still live today with my two now-teenagers and our dog. That’s a huge deal in the South Asian Muslim community: Women just don’t move out on their own. I chose to live my life being the best example I could be for my kids. I’ve never viewed myself as a victim; I’ve always looked at myself as a survivor. I was the child who was in a toxic, abusive forced marriage, went through marital abuse and rape and three pregnancies (one unsuccessful), yet chose to look at my possibilities. I saw the problems, and instead of drowning myself in them, I looked for solutions and made courageous, life-changing decisions.

My battle is not over. As an activist to end child marriage, I lobby for the laws that can change the lives of girls and raise the age of marriage to 18 without exceptions. Fighting for the children who don’t have the resources or protection to fight for themselves is my mission. Mentoring survivors at Unchained At Last is something I have always wanted to do for other girls in my shoes. I know how it feels to not have support. Giving my mentees the tools, techniques and hope to move forward is so important, but why should there be tools and techniques in the first place when we can eliminate child marriage? I seek a world where girls have rights, where girls have freedom to choose and to be who they want to be and where child marriage no longer exists.

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I was 14 years old and in the ninth grade, working nights at the Waffle House, going to school during the day and taking care of my 12-year-old sister. Most nights I could barely make it home I was so tired. We lived in a two-room garage with our mother, who was hardly ever there.

My mother never made me feel loved. Years later, after she passed away, I learned from a relative that I was the result of an affair, and my mother passed me off to my father as his because she was afraid he would kill her if he found out she had been unfaithful.

There was a man who came into the Waffle House at night after he got out of class at the community college. He would come in and order pie and coffee almost every night. He would flirt with me and ask to drive me home, but I never let him.

My family eventually moved about 10 miles away into a small, shared duplex apartment. I got a job as a night waitress at a supper club behind the apartment by lying about my age. There was a small store across the street where we caught the bus to school. The man from the Waffle House made deliveries there.

After a while, he would come over to mow the yard or take me and my sister to drive-in movies. I thought of him only as a friend at first, but he started coming over a lot more often. He would watch my little sister sometimes while I was at work. After a few months, my mother told me that I should marry him.  She told me he would make sure I went to school and that he had agreed to annul the marriage or divorce me when I turned 18. She said she would marry him if I didn’t. He was 27 years old; I was 15.

The next thing I knew, I was on my way to the altar in a black suit appropriate for a funeral. My mother’s boyfriend paid for it, along with a pair of black patent leather heels — my first high heels!

I didn’t know where my dad was, as he was an absent parent too, so he wasn’t there as I walked down the small church aisle after a Sunday service. It wasn’t a wedding; it was just a minister saying words from the Bible and pronouncing us husband and wife. I knew I had made a mistake right away. I ran away to a relative’s home as soon as we returned from our short “honeymoon,” but she called my husband to come pick me up. She told me, “You made your bed; now you will have to lie in it.” I didn’t know where the rest of my family was by then. I had nowhere to go but back to him.

He told me that, since I was his wife now, I had to submit and do whatever he wanted, because that’s what wives do. Three months later, I was pregnant and very sick. We moved to another city where I didn’t know anybody and was now too sick to work or go to school. Our son was born shortly after. Less than two years later, our second son was born.

It was never a good marriage, but I tried to make the best of things. For the first time, I had a stable roof over my head and food to eat. But I was sick a lot and had to work nights and take care of my boys during the day. When I was 20, our daughter was born; she was breech and had to be fitted for a hip brace before going home. When my daughter was about a year old, I got pregnant again. This time, the doctor said I could not carry a child to term, and I ended up having a hysterectomy.

My husband did whatever he wanted and went wherever he wanted while I stayed home with the children. He did not treat me as if he loved me or respected me. We were all afraid of him and his temper. He was a big man and a bully. I caught him cheating on me several times, but I really didn’t care; it kept him off me. I felt trapped and at times didn’t want to live, but I had to think about my children.

I finally divorced him after I got the nerve to leave. It was hard; I left everything to get away but fought for my children. I had to agree to not take anything from him in order to keep the kids. He reminded me that I had no education nor anyone to rely on if I tried to fight him in court, so I walked away with nothing.

After a year, I was able to take him to court.  I got custody of my children and was allowed to stay in the house as long as I had all three kids in my care. I got my GED and took some community college courses. My boys joined the military after high school, and my daughter was talked into moving in with her father; it released him of his obligation if she lived with him. I had to borrow money from the house and give him his share of it in order to finally have him out of my life.

He’s been married a couple of more times, and I’m still single after 40-plus years. But I made something of myself. I raised my children to be good people. I started my own business. I became a volunteer for several groups and am finally happy. My past has made me who I am, and I’m proud of myself.

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*At Jean’s request, her name has been changed and the photo used here is not actually of her.

When I was barely 15 years old, I was driven nearly five hours across state lines to Missouri by a 22-year-old man determined to make me his bride. On June 19, 2003, I was wed to this man, who then rented a hotel room where he took my virginity. It was not consensual. I was sexually assaulted almost daily in nearly every imaginable way for over a year. I was stuck as this man’s property.

Why and how could this happen? Well, I was the child of an affair between my mother and her husband’s brother. My stepfather — my mother’s husband at the time of my conception — chose to stay with my mother despite the circumstances of my arrival, as he knew my biological father was an alcoholic and a heroin addict.

When I was 14, my stepfather, who had raised me, left for work one morning and never returned. I came home from school to find my mother sobbing hysterically. My mother then turned to boyfriends and alcohol herself. Eventually, she disappeared with one of those boyfriends, and my little brother and I were left to our own devices. My brother went to stay with a friend, who he ended up living with until he was 18. I, too, stayed with various friends, including the man who would end up marrying me.

He lived in a trailer in Arkansas with two roommates. All three were in their 20s, and they regularly hung out with my friends and I, who were between the ages of 12 and 16. They gave us alcohol and drugs. The first time I ever got drunk, I was 12 years old and alone with my abuser in his bedroom. I do not recall any abuse from him at that time. However, I later learned in therapy that I was being “groomed.”

While I was married to this man, I endured more than just sexual abuse; I also endured emotional abuse. I was kept from going to school for days at a time, and even had to use fake doctors’ notes due to the extreme absences. I was alienated from my peers, my friends and my family. I had no privacy or bodily autonomy, as he often even watched me bathe. It was a hostage situation, not a marriage.

When I was 16, I got a job, saved up some money and secretly began calling lawyers, trying to find help. I managed to an incredibly generous lawyer out of Little Rock, Arkansas, who listened to me with open ears and an open heart. She helped me file for a divorce, only asking me to pay the $50 filing fees. I was so desperate to get out of the prison that I was in.

By my senior year of high school, I was divorced and living on my own. I went on to graduate from college, have a daughter and attempt to live my life. I have had a semi-successful career as a journalist for almost 10 years now, but my past has always haunted me, affecting my personal relationships, my stability, my career and everything else in my life.

At 28, I was diagnosed with borderline personality disorder and panic disorder, both attributed directly to the “severe trauma” I experienced at the hands of my abuser and by my parents’ abandonment.

For nearly a decade, I tried to pretend none of it ever happened. But at 32, I am no longer afraid nor ashamed to speak about it publicly, as it is not my shame, but his.

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