Sonita Alizada
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Sonita Alizada

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My name is Sonita Alizada. I came to America in 2015 as a non-English speaker, but this is not where my story begins. I am the youngest of seven siblings. I was born in Afghanistan, a country where I have only known war and being ruled by the Taliban. Afghan tradition led my family to sell my two sisters into marriage. All I remember of them after marriage is bruises and fear and taking care of their babies while they were still children themselves. Then it was my turn; I was being sold into marriage to pay for my brother's wife. I was only 10 years old. My marriage contract fell through, so to escape the Taliban, my family walked hundreds of miles to Iran in rain and snow. I grew up an undocumented refugee in Tehran. Without official papers, I could not go to school. I eventually found a Non-Governmental Organization that provided basic education to young Afghans who did not have any documentation. The teachers’ support changed my life. I took advantage of every opportunity. I lived by myself for four years. Every day, I spent five hours studying, two hours at a secret music class, and I worked two cleaning jobs. I was only 15 years old. This is when I made my first rap song, “Child Labor”, which led me to a filmmaker who was interested in my life, especially in how I got the courage to rap in a country where women are not allowed to sing. She started following me with her camera, creating a documentary. After four years, now at 16, my mother came back to Iran, telling me I had to go back to Afghanistan to marry a man, a total stranger. This short sentence broke my heart. For a moment, my dreams disappeared. I almost gave up until I looked at my dreams book, where I put pictures of my dreams to keep them alive. I convinced my mother to give me a few months to complete my education. After she left I wrote a rap song called “Daughter for Sale”. With the help of the filmmaker, we made a music video and uploaded it to YouTube. It went viral across the world in just four days! A humanitarian organization saw the video and reached out. They mediated a scholarship for me with Wasatch Academy in Utah and facilitated my relocation to the United States. My arrival at Wasatch Academy brought the final scene of the documentary, “Sonita”, and the beginning of a new life and campaign against child marriage. I graduated from Bard College in May of 2023. I received a Rhodes Scholarship and will go to Oxford in 2025.
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