She said it bluntly: she was willing to lose her life rather than return to that house.
She is 18 years old and lives in Jawzjan province, in northern Afghanistan. During 8 months of marriage, her husband beat her.
When she found the courage to seek a Khula divorce, her case reached Abdullah Sarhadi, a governor with the power to decide whether or not she could get divorced.
Her husband put a price on her freedom: 30 thousand dollars, more than double what he had paid for the dowry. The young woman’s family did not have that money.
Sarhadi heard the allegations of abuse and, even so, ordered her to go back to him. He promised her a room of her own and warned her husband not to hit her again. Nothing more. 😔
The BBC documented all this thanks to uncommon access to these meetings, where the fate of Afghan women is decided in minutes, with a single sentence.