By Samar Shaheen
\nThe clock was pointing to twelve noon when my mobile phone rang out with its familiar ringtone, \"you are in the heart, you are\", and before I could offer a greeting a voice came to me from the other side weeping aimlessly, crying for help, begging me to come at once to a place and an address I wrote down on a piece of paper, and I hurried off to answer the call, my tongue murmuring a prayer to the Most High and Almighty that the matter might be simple and no more than providing an urgent service. But the surprise was greater than all expectations, and the event that awaited me almost finished me, yet I refused to collapse and decided to help whatever the outcome!!
\n... The beginning of the story was on a pavement in the Al-Nasr neighbourhood of Gaza city, when I met that girl (21
\nyears old) who had just called me. I had met her once at Al-Shifa hospital in the burns department, where she was suffering from first-degree burns to the upper part of her body, and she had recovered from that. And before I could offer her a greeting she began recounting the story to me, and I felt at that moment that I was hearing chapters of the suffering Palestinian women endure, whose beginning was laid the moment her mother was forced to marry her father, through her being burned by her father's wife, to this moment in which she revealed a buried secret when she said to me: \"I thought long and found no one before me but you, so help me or take part in killing me now.\"
\nI tried to comfort her, but thoughts crowded my mind: what surprise was she carrying for me behind these tears that almost carved a channel in her cheeks from their intensity and abundance.
\nAnd when she fell silent for a moment I asked her the reason for all this sorrow, pain and tears. Had her father died, or would she be forced into marriage against her will to someone she did not want, so that the tragedy would repeat itself? Many questions, and the answer was one word: no.
\nThen she whispered words of which I understood nothing but: \"I am pregnant.\" For a moment I could not control myself and I sat down on the pavement in the road and felt dizzy... and I needed someone to deny what I had heard. How could a girl who had never married be pregnant, and how could I help her when I had just made a pledge to myself to help.
\nAnd she began recounting her story, but my ears went deaf and I was thinking how I could help her, to whom I should turn, what would be said about me, whether I should fulfil the promise or flee and leave her after she had entrusted me with her secret. I knew her name and her family's name; indeed I had visited her once while she was still lying on a bed at Al-Shifa hospital and had given her my mobile number in case she ever needed me. And I did not come to myself until she said to me: I do not know how it happened. All I know is that months ago I went looking for a job opportunity to support myself given the bad economic situation my family lives in, and I took a car in which there were a number of young men, and I did not come to myself until I was in a place I did not know, and only a group of passers-by in that place where I found myself helped me to get home, and I kept the matter to myself because I did not expect that I had been subjected to a rape.
\nHer tears, her pleas, her groans and her moaning were stronger than any decision, and my journey with her in treating the affliction began. And because fear was what controlled me after she told me that my family had learned of my situation and that I was pregnant and had asked me not to return home until I had got rid of that shame for which I bore no guilt...
\nA journey that lasted no more than hours in her company, which I spent with tears of pain, wandering in search of a way out of that crisis brought upon me by a pledge I had made to myself to help others, particularly women, until someone pointed me to a doctor who would carry out the task to perfection and that the sum required exceeded all expectations. I left her with the doctor, having deposited with him part of the sum he asked for and two pieces of gold, until I could provide the required sum within hours.
\nI returned to my work with the reproach of conscience pursuing me and feeling that I had now fallen into a great mistake. Had I been hasty? Had I taken part in ending a life? Had I misunderstood helping others? Would that girl survive, or would a death certificate be written for her? Questions whose answers were obscure; I did not know to whom to turn, and for a moment I felt my weakness and my helplessness, until I gathered myself and took the initiative of calling the city's mufti. I explained the whole matter to him, my tears outracing my words, and my mind was not set at rest until he said: \"God Almighty chose you to cover the faults of others, so how much more so when it is a girl. Blessed are you, my daughter.\"
\nThis is an incident whose details and course took place in the corridors of Gaza city, and it is certainly not the first incident, for violence and assault on others is still spoken of here and there. And despite the many projects civil society organisations have worked to carry out, the official records at the police stations still record dozens of various incidents, among them incidents of assault. And the great question remains that asks itself: how long will these projects go with the wind and achieve no hoped-for benefit? Perhaps the great increase in those incidents and others shows the failure of many of them to achieve their aims.
\nAnd because danger surrounds us on every side, we must adopt sound educational foundations capable of creating a generation that faces the challenges and in whose life mistakes have no place, however small or large.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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