In Kurgan Teppa we visited the Women’s Centre – the only centre of its type in Tajikistan – which is supported by our partners Ghamkhori. We meet Sharifmo Nasrieva, who is 27 and has already experienced more trauma and misery than any of us are likely to encounter in a lifetime. She, as well as the other the women in the centre, is keen that we should hear about her life. This is the story she gave to Catherine...
Sharifmo was only 12-years-old when her parents arranged for her to be married. It was the middle of the civil war and soldiers used to come to her parent’s house and threaten to take her. Sharifmo’s mother told her that it was better for her to marry than be raped.
As she was so young, the parents were promised that Sharifmo would not be ‘touched’ until she was older but this turned out to be an empty promise. Her husband had sex with her on her first night in his house. She bled so much that she lost consciousness and was hospitalised for three months.
It says a lot about the rights of women in Tajikistan that this marriage lasted 12 years, and for Sharifmo this was 12 years of physical abuse that put her in the emergency room five times. The marriage only ended because Sharifmo did not provide her husband with a child.
Sharifmo’s attitude changes when she tells us how, after her marriage ended she went to live with her sister and help look after her sister’s children. It seems that this brief interlude in her life is the only time when she has experienced real happiness.
When her sister’s husband returned from Russia, Sharifmo was forced to marry again. But this time she wanted more say in the choice of husband and told her family ‘I am not cattle, let me see him.’
Her family arranged a meeting and Sharifmo agreed to the marriage. However, it turned out that the man she had met was not her husband. She had been duped - her husband was in fact a 49-year-old widower who already had a family of his own. “I saw him and said ‘Allah’ and continued with my life.”
Pregnant in the first month of marriage, Sharifmo had to cut wheat, shake cotton, and clean the water channels. She would start work at 8am and finish at 8pm, stopping only for lunch.
She had a difficult pregnancy and collapsed several times while working in the field but her mother-in-law would say ‘It didn’t kill us, so it won’t kill you’ and Sharifmo would have to get back to work.
Sharifmo had a complicated delivery, her placenta was stuck and the baby had to be ‘sucked out’. She went to hospital compelling her brother-in-law to pay the US$300 necessary for her treatment which included a blood transfusion.
Her husband then divorced her, saying it was ‘easier for me to let you go and divorce you than pay this money. He has never seen his son, nor has he paid a penny towards his upkeep.
‘I thought I will have a baby, I will be lucky… but I am not lucky.’
Sharifmo explains that she, her mother and her son, Mustapha - now aged 2, live in one room in her brother’s house but they are not wanted there. Her brother is violent and she is scared of him and she has at times felt suicidal. She suddenly stands on a chair and shows us how she wanted to hang herself.
Fortunately, a friend told her about the Women’s Centre run by Ghamkhori and how it can help women in her circumstances. Sharifmo is now a lot more positive about her life:
‘My brother didn’t kill me. I’ve found another way to live – a solution. They [the centre] teach me how to bring up my son and how to work. This is a place of hope for me.’
Sharifmo now has a job wrapping sweets. She earns just enough to pay for her food but it’s her first step on her way to some form of independence in her life. She also has the support of a group of women who’ve also gone through similar experiences.
It’s hard to see how much Sharifmo’s life will improve but it’s unbearable to think of it getting worse. Hopefully with the support of the centre, she now has a chance of a better future.
I am going to Tajikistan this summer with the missions agency Pioneers and this has really helped me to understand how the people there live before I go. Thank you
Posted by: Cyndi | March 19, 2008 at 22:11
Hi, thanks for dropping by my blog. This is lovely- I went to a training session with some people from Ghamkori, lovely people.
Will definitely be linking your way, and I hope you will also let me know of any other aid workers' blogs, or your other blogs, on similar topics.
Posted by: Elizabeth | February 01, 2006 at 08:00
Thank you all for these regular updates and stories. The humility and perseverance of those that you have met on your travels is truly incredible - it does indeed put our own problems into perspective.
You are all missed here, but you are doing an amazing job of conveying the lives of these people from a part of the world that is often forgotten. Please keep going with the blog and the images - they are fantastic.
Posted by: Juliet Blackledge | January 17, 2006 at 13:50
Thank you so much for taking the time to share these stories with us. They are incredibly powerful and moving. I can’t believe how difficult the lives are for these people and how I know so little about it. Your words are opening my eyes to a new world of poverty: the cold, the arranged marriages, the failure of the state to provide even the most basic of requirements for the majority of its people, and the exclusion of so many from society. The fact that you’re talking with these people virtually as you type brings so much more immediacy to the people’s stories and makes your trip even more inspirational. My thoughts and prayers go out to you all, and all the people you meet. Olivia Flint
Posted by: Olivia Flint | January 17, 2006 at 10:18