Haseena defies her community
Freedom or tradition? Haseena’s choice to change her future
Haseena is 18 years old and comes from Paterwa Sugauli, a town in the Parsa district of Nepal, near the Indian border. Growing up in a country where women are seen as a burden to the family means having few choices: marrying young, becoming a wife and a mother, and setting aside dreams and aspirations. But Haseena chose to change her destiny.
Promised in marriage since birth, she was supposed to marry at 16 a man she had not chosen. But when she started attending the Samata Youth Hub, a youth organization supported by ActionAid, she learned about her rights and realized that early marriage wasn’t her only future.
Determined to resist, she began to openly confront her family, trying to convince her parents that marrying so early would jeopardize her education and freedom. But the path was not easy: her future husband and his family tried to stop her, accusing her of disrespecting tradition.
Despite the pressure, Haseena found the strength to speak publicly about her experience during a community awareness event. On that occasion, she managed to persuade her father to listen to her, and in the end, her parents agreed to postpone the marriage until she turns 20, the legal age in Nepal.
However, her future in-laws continued to push for the promise to be fulfilled, and that’s when Haseena made her most courageous decision: to cancel the engagement and the marriage.
The consequences were severe, and the community judged her harshly.
“When an engagement or marriage promise is canceled, people in the community blame the woman. There must be something wrong with her, that’s why it was called off.
But that doesn’t matter to me, because the man I was promised to is neither educated nor open-minded. I wouldn’t be happy with him.”
Today, Haseena is a symbol of resistance and hope for many other girls. Her courage proves that change is possible.
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