A Muslim child bride who fled to Australia has told how she was beaten and abused by her husband, claiming her religion caused her ‘nothing but pain’.
At the age of just 16 the Iranian woman was forced by her father to marry a man who was a decade older. She says she didn’t want to, but Islam left her with ‘no rights’.
More than two decades since her wedding day, the 39-year-old is living on the Gold Coast, Queensland, her new home after initially fleeing Iran for the safety of Europe.
Telling the Gold Coast Bulletin her story of discrimination and how she was forced to give up seeing her children, the woman revealed she has converted to Christianity.
A Muslim child bride who fled to Australia has told how she was beaten and abused by her husband, claiming her religion caused her ‘nothing but pain’ (Stock image)
Growing up in Rasht, in the north-west of Iran, the woman said she was forced into following Islam and had no option to convert to anything else.
‘A person who does that in Iran will be deemed an apostate and the punishment is death,’ she said.
Growing up in the middle east, her childhood was at times incredibly difficult.
Her father had two wives and there were stages where she and her family would go hungry as he provided more to the others. Then there was February 17, 1994.
Despite pleading with her father not to let it go ahead, she was forced to marry the cousin of his second wife. He was 26, but she was just 16.
She was pregnant at the age of 17 and gave birth to a son in 1995. In 2000 they had a second child, a girl.
Throughout their relationship she says she was beaten by her husband, who was also having affairs with multiple women.
‘I hated Islam and its regressive laws in Iran more than ever — a religion with no value or respect for women,’ she said.
‘It recognises women as only a means of sexual pleasure for men.’
Eventually her father agreed to push for a divorce, but under Islamic law she had to give up her children.
While their divorce was still being finalised she fell in love with someone else, a travel agent with who she traveled the world and for the first time discovered Christianity.
Now living on the Gold Coast she says her life is completely different, having joined a small local church and being granted a bridging visa.
‘Islam had brought me nothing by suffering and hardships,’ she said.