Young Iranian lashed for prostitution
From Harper’s magazine, March 2004:
From interviews with Iranian brothel workers conducted by Roya Karimi-Majd forZanan, a women’s magazine published in Teheran…. Translated from the Farsi.
When I was in the fourth grade my mother died, and my father died when I was sixteen. My older brother took the other eight of us to Teheran to live with our half brother and his family in a couple of tiny rooms he rented in the Islamshahr district.
A couple of days after we arrived, I befriended a girl at the vegetable market. I went to her house, and she lent me a beautiful overcoat of hers to wear to the store. When we went out, everyone was staring at me—I had become pretty. That night my half brother, who worked in the same area, came home, ate dinner, and then beat me. He kept saying, “Two days you’ve been in Teheran and you’ve been corrupted! What were you wearing? You’ve ruined my reputation!”…
I was in so much pain that I couldn’t sleep. When the morning call to prayer sounded, I ran away. I said to myself, “I’ll go find my mother’s sister. I’ll go back to my hometown. I’ll find a husband and be free from all of them.” It was nighttime when I got to the southern bus terminal, and the tickets were sold out. I didn’t have much money, so I went into the bathroom, where a few other girls were sleeping.
I had just started to fall asleep when a loud sound awakened me. The religious police were conducting a raid, and they took us all to the police station. From there we were sent to court. I couldn’t understand a word of what the judge was saying. I was sleepy. I wanted to tell him what had happened, but I couldn’t. In the end he gave me a sentence: eighty lashes and a 30,000 toman fine [thirty-five dollars].
When they whipped me, it hurt… At first, I screamed out loud. Then I just bit down hard on the edge of my chador. I was an idiot. I was only sixteen years old. I was locked up for three months. I actually missed my half brother’s beatings.
