Sonita Alizadeh Quotes
It was too hard to understand marrying someone I didn't know. When you don't like someone, if he touches you, it's harder than anything.
Sonita. Directed by Rokhsareh Ghaemmaghami, Women Make Movies, 2015.
Forced marriage upon a girl or woman was very common at the time. In this case, the woman had been repeatedly raped (the sin) and then forced to say the words of the marriage ceremony in front of witnesses. The woman wanted the marriage dissolved, and the man wanted his “wife.” At the time, there was no such thing as divorce. De Ponte ruled that there was no marriage. He was the first medieval jurist to write opinions on cases, thus preserving a record for openness and an instrument to teach others and produce uniformity of decisions and judgments—the basis of most legal systems today. As a result this written case, forced marriage became less frequent in Italy, though it is very prevalent in underdeveloped countries in general and Islamic nations in particular. Even in the United States there are a few cases of forced marriage each year, particularly in religious cults and communities.
Unchaiuned at Last was founded in 2011 as a non-profit organization devoted to curtailing arranged and forced marriages of girls and young women in America. This is their Motto. See the Related Quotes for more insight into the American Child Marriage Problem.
Sonita Alizadeh (Persian: سونیتا علیزاده; born 1996) is an Afghan rapper and activist who has been vocal against forced marriages. Alizadeh first gained attention when she released "Brides for Sale," a video in which she raps about daughters being sold into marriage by their families. With the help of Rokhsareh Ghaem Maghami, an Iranian documentary filmmaker who over three years documented her story in the film Sonita, Alizadeh filmed the video to escape a marriage her parents were planning for her, even though it is illegal for women to sing publicly in Iran, where she was living at the time. After releasing the video on YouTube, Alizadeh was contacted by the Strongheart Group, which offered her a student visa and financial help to come and study in the United States of America, where she then relocated and has resided since. In 2015, she was listed as one of BBC's 100 Women.
