Give in to Hope Day 31: Sonita Alizadeh

Today’s hero is very brave, and her life has been very hard. In the country where Sonita Alizadeh grew up, it is very common for girls to be sold away from their families as brides, even when they are very young. This practice is unfortunately common in many places in the world, where daughters do not have the same value placed on them as sons. Sonita’s family attempted to sell her at age 10, and again at age 16. The sale at 10 did not happen, and at 14 her family escaped from their home country of Afghanistan to Iran, where she connected with a youth non-profit and started writing music, including her rap that went viral, Daughters for Sale. After her family again tried to sell her at 16, she was able to escape to the US to attend school on scholarship. She was lucky, but she knows many other girls are married away from their families when they are still just children, and Sonita has devoted her life since then to speaking, rapping, writing and advocating to end the practice of child marriage. She knows that all girls deserve to be children, not something bought and sold.

For more about Sonita, plus a simple explanation about child marriage: https://www.speaktruthtopowerinschool.com/defenders-map/sonita-alizadeh

To hear Daughters for Sale: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pxlMUy_m6xM (content warning: in the video, Sonita appears to have a black eye and a bloody nose (makeup for the music video) and the contents of the song mention suicide. The song is EXTREMELY powerful, but viewer discretion is advised).

Sonita used music to help spread a message about an extremely important topic that is hard to talk about. Why do you think people use arts (music, dance, theater, painting, sculpture, poetry) to talk about hard things? Is there something creative that you do to help you process big feelings?

Dear God, Sonita speaks for all of those who can’t. Help us do the same. Amen