“I had a normal life in Afghanistan until I was 18 years old and my 40-year-old cousin wanted to force me to marry him. He was part of an Islamist group that controlled my hometown Paghman. My cousin and his group threatened every other man who wanted to come to my family’s house to request to marry me. When I still refused him, they burned down our home and we had to flee from Paghman to Kabul during the night.

Three years later, I met a nice woman at a wedding in Kabul. She liked me and asked my parents to let me marry her son Mohammed. He is my husband now and we have beautiful children.

After ten years in Kabul, my cousin found me again. We knew that this time, we had to leave the country to escape our enemies and so we fled to Iran. I haven’t seen my cousin since but I heard that he is married to a 10-year-old girl now. But I don’t want to think about him. He cannot control my life any more.”