Sonita: Brides For Sale

Sonita Alizada is twenty years old and from Herat, Afghanistan. She is the youngest of a family of eight children and no one remembers her birth date. She is a refugee in Iran and has never had an Afghan or Iranian identification card. At the age of 8, Sonita and her family became illegal immigrants in Iran due to lack of security in Afghanistan. Due to legal issues in Iran and discrimination against refugees, Sonita has never been able to receive formal education in Iranian schools, but the Association of Support for Working and Street Children has supported Sonita and provided her with informal educational opportunities. Despite legal and financial problems and being away from her family, Sonita loves rap music and performing in a concert in Afghanistan is one of her dreams. In this song, Sonita sings about the horrors of child and forced marriage.  She raps in her Herati accent, but with thie intention of giving voice to many more individuals that she has encountered in life.

The song has been translated for English subtitles by Noorjahan Akbar.  Akbar has emerged as a leading figure in the fight for women’s rights in Afghanistan. She has worked with many women's rights organisations, and is a networker of Women Living Under Muslim Laws (WLUML), one of the three organisations behind the WELDD project.  She has also been a TEDx speaker and was named by Forbes as a Top Woman Changing the World.  She currently runs a social media campaign called Freewomenwriters that supports female poets and writers in Afghanistan. 

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