My Way or the Highway

Hello everyone,
This is Amina from Pakistan. I never knew that there are such a great platform for women Empowerment. 
I just want to share my story here! 
I was born in Quetta, year was 1991, in a backward village, as it was 40km away from main city.  We were four sisters and 2 brothers. Our fathers was a Farmer by profession. I use to attend the school in our adjacent village. It was a school made by an NGO called Plan Pakistan. I was in 5th grade when my elder sister was caught having an affair with a neighbor. And by affair i mean that they both wrote letters to each other and they used to leave the letters in empty match boxes on the street at a certain spot.
When my father realized that, he came home one day from the fields and he started beating my sister because someone told him about her affair. i remember very clearly that my father blamed her for having sexual relations. Meanwhile my sister was crying with pain and fear and she was begging for forgiveness.
 The whole village came to our house and they came to know that my sister had an affair. 
My father's best friend came to my father and stopped him and took him away, then he whispered him something and they both left the house.

It was summer, and in our area, where we don't have many facilities, we move our beds in an open space, like in our lawn r even on our rooftop to get some air.
Later that day i woke up because of something that i heard, i was under my sheet that I had to cover myself while sleeping. I saw my father and someone else taking out a bag, a big bag that we usually used to put floor or rice in.
i saw my mother sitting on her bed crying, sobbing. After every few seconds, she was saying "Allahhhhhh". She was trying her best not to raise her voice but still she lost control sometimes and maybe i woke up because of her voice. i was scared to take my face out of the sheet and I pretended that I am still sleeping.
At that time, I was 11 years of age. And the year was like 2002 or 2003.

Next day when I got up and was getting ready for school, my sister was not there. i asked my mother that where is she and she didn't respond. Later i heard that my sister ran away from home and my bothers and other two sisters sue to talk bad about her. That she was a disgrace to our family, she ruined the name of our family.
But deep down I knew that there is something wrong, that she never runaway but my father has done something to her.

Time moved fast. I was in 9th grade when my father made me marry a 34 years old man, he had sons and daughters half my age. That man was a well known man in the area because he owned a general store in that area and he took over the business from his father.

That man was nothing what i expected in my life partner. But I was divided between moving back to my father's house who killed my sister for sure. Or i had to live with this guy. And that guy, he had a daughter, she was around 9 years old but she became my friend, like she was always looking up to me and I always wanted her to be the best, study hard and don't get married too early.

I had my first miscarriage when I was 16 and then the next one when I was 17 years of age.

In year 2008-09 I got pregnant once again, and this time my husband sent me to Rawalpindi. His younger - step brother was in Rawalpindi, he had a small portion on rent in Rawalpindi near a government hospital "Holy Family Hospital".
I wasn't expecting a warm welcome and of course it never happened. The sister in law, that was there, she just gave me a corner in the lounge with a traditional bed and yeah, that was the spot where i spent most of the day.
After multiple checkups, my doctor asked me to take walks on daily basis. so i started going out for walk whenever I saw the weather is not that hot. i used to take long walks along the road, as you all know that road side walks are not that great in Pakistan, specially in a city like Rawalpindi but still it was better than staying inside.
i used to cross a park daily, but the door was not visible tome so i never went inside.
luckily one day two girls were passing me, and they were talking about going to park in Pashtun language. (i forgot to tell you that my mother language is Pashtun and i couldn't speak Urdu).
i started following those girls and finally that day i saw the gate for the first time. I went into the park and thanked those girls. First hey laughed at me but later we started talking, i came to know that those girls are same age as mine and they are living in a girls hostel and both are going to college. They invited me to come to their hostel and I was happier than ever that I found some friends here.
after 3 months i gave birth to a beautiful boy. My husband was also there in the hospital at the time of the birth. As were my two new friends, Hina And Rukhsana.
But my husband didn't liked those two and soon after the delivery he decided that we should move back to home. And we did. 
While i was there, i started understanding Urdu a little and I also learned that women can do jobs and can make a living. and not every girl who is 15 should be married.
Now i use to tell my step daughter that she should be like hina and rukhsana and should go to Rawalpindi for studies. I was also occupied with house hold chores and my newborn.

During delivery, there were a lot of complications and i couldn't performed in bed. i was in immense pain whenever we had intercourse. And this thing wasn't accepted by my partner, he started shouting on me on daily basis and sometimes he even slapped me or banged my head in the wall.

Soon these things went out of control and I started shouting back whenever he hit me or slapped me. And one day he just divorced me. Without any warning! i was on the road, my parents were dead already, and even at that time, I wasn't thinking about my father.
i had 653 Rupees in my Dupata and i thought of moving to Rawalpindi.
to seek help from Hina and Rukhsana. So i did, i spent the night at the station holding my son, sitting in a corner.
WORLD PULSE IS ASKING ME TO KEEP IT UNDER 1200 WORDS SO PART 1 ENDS HERE!