Never good enough
“On our wedding day, we had a bath in the morning and made a traditional desert called kir, made from rice, sugar, milk and almonds. Then we put on our new red clothes and new silver jewellery, which we had received from our parents-in-law. Finally, we put on our new red shoes. Our friends painted beautiful designs on our hands in henna. “The wedding was in our home, and in the evening our relatives walked with us to our in-laws’ house, which was to be our new home. I was scared and tearful – I just wanted to stay with my mother. “Now I had to do housework with my mother-in-law. I felt like I was being watched all the time. I did my best, but my mother-in-law and my husband’s sisters were never satisfied. They complained about me, made faces, and moaned about everything I tried to do.”

School of life
“After a few months, my parents-in-law suddenly dumped me back at my mother’s house and then moved, with the rest of the family including my husband, to the big city of Karachi. My husband had a drug problem. A year ago, he came back to me. He doesn’t use drugs any more. We both live with my mother now. I still work with my mother in different people’s homes. My husband sometimes works. “We have never been to school. I used to watch other children walking to school. I wished I could go too, but we had to help our mother to earn money because our father died of tuberculosis. If I had been allowed to go to school, we would have learned more about life, and perhaps our lives would have been different.”