A father who does not even think of sending his children to primary school, almost every person around him, is a religious educator. Fortunately, I was able to go to primary school. At that time, my mother was utterly on my father’s side. I was forbidden to wear clothes that would show my body at home. I was forcibly veiled in secondary school and was not sent to high school. We only lived life according to my father’s rules.

I struggled for two years and finally enrolled in distance education. I finished high school this way from the outside, and I entered a university outside the city. I could never match that girl in the mirror wearing the headscarf. I decided; Only I would determine my life in that city. My mother and sister knew this.

I shaved my head, and I removed that piece from me in the city I went to. I did not receive financial support from my family. I wanted to study; I got a job. I went to school and work, I was exhausted, but I was living my way. I was going to school, and I was free.

Over time, I became an atheist. Despite this, I still wear a headscarf on my way home because I can’t fight ignorance.

(Image: Natasha Brooks)