Rekha - Trigger warning
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TRIGGER WARNING: THIS SHORT STORY IS ABOUT RAPE AND ABUSE OF A CHLD WITH THEMES OF SUICIDE.
An average of 40,000 children and young women under the age of 18 are married every day. This is around 15 million each year. More than 60% of child brides in developing countries have no formal education.
Today, there are more than 700 million women alive who were married before their 18th birthday. This is the equivalent of one in 10 of the world’s population. If we do not accelerate efforts to protect girls, there will be 950 million girls and women who will have been affected by child marriage by 2030.
Standing upon the roof top,
watching her brothers walk to school,
Rekha reminisces about her playground,
full of childhood innocent smiles.
A sole kite decorated in orange and red,
floats in the morning breeze,
Rekha feels her soul tug at her heart strings -
yearning for such freedom to roam.
A martyr to dowry, a casualty of sacrifice.
What Rekha's parents thought
was an escape from poverty,
has made her a prisoner of brutality.
Scolded for too much sugar in chai,
water being too warm,
chapatti not being round.
Cursed and beaten like a stray dog,
for being unable to work fast enough,
because she can't walk nor raise her arms,
after being repeatedly raped last night -
by a man old enough to be her father.
Sickened by flashbacks of how
his saliva dripped on her like rotten fish.
Extreme nausea from his strong touch
felt like cockroaches and beetles
were crawling inside her flesh,
but no one heard her screams.
They just shut their doors, bolted their windows,
as he grabbed her neck with his dirty claws -
she wished he would have choked her!
Suffering in silence, the pain is too much,
her parents cannot rescue her.
Rekha wishes she could sleep forever,
because the bleeding won't stop and
her bruised body is slowly breaking,
like a porcelain doll with cracks,
living in an endless nightmare.
Her mind in a state of arrested development,
questions the purpose of existence.
Rekha stands on the ledge,
waits until her brothers are out of view,
waves the world goodbye,
she is fragile like a kite,
but cannot fly.
Rekha was only twelve..
Copyright © Silent One | Year Posted 2023
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