A Lesson in Hope, a Story about Gulsoma

Twelve year old Gulsoma from Afghanistan spent the greatest part of her childhood under a household of flotsams and a tyrant. A "wife" at the age of 6, she was a household slave subjected to daily torture, violence, and dehumanization: beatings with electric wires and sticks, forced to sleep outside on the cold dirt after long and laborous days, and the daily wear of being hated by those called her family. Once she was forced to lie on her belly while her torturers used her back as a cutting board for food. She was scalded with hot water over the head, after having been locked in a shed for two months. She was beaten nearly to death, finally escaping to hide under a rickshaw, where she was discovered by its driver and taken to the police. One year later, this is the smile she wears. Her skin aged from toil, her eyes wearing courage that has faced an unfathomable war for dignity. She is a woman with children's limbs, and she will never leave me.

I wept through her story a year ago. Her torture and suffering are so vastly beyond any volume I have ever experienced, the damage done to her is most likely irreparrable wholly, and what pain she bears only she knows. When I look at her face there is something profoundly resiliant about her will to smile, to comfort those who hear her story.

For so long I have carried my past as though it were something I should be ashamed of, trying to protect those around me from the trauma of hearing it, as though the evil in this world were only for certain of us to experience. Like a leper in ancient Israel, warning others and shouting as they walked, "I am unclean." I have carried the shame handed me as though it were mine alone, approaching relationships as someone who would take scraps of dignity if only I were so lucky, and I am so tired of that swallowing walk of victimhood.

The amazing and inspiring thing about Gulsoma beyond her sheer survival, is how she mustered herself to hold on to her spirit when every human being around her was assaulting it. Living under the regime of the Taliban, and under the shrine of a cowardly household tormenter, at the age of 12, her dignity remained her own through iron fingers. She is a humanitarian in true form. Gulsama is now 13, and lives in an orphanage in Kanadar. The women's embassy knows of her story, and she aspires to one day help women in her situation. Her torturer is in prison in Afghanistan, while there remain many like him wandering free. I hope with what suffering she bears in her future, she will know how inspiring her bravery is.

In her words, "I believe all people are good, except for the ones that hurt me."

Kevin Sites tells Gulsoma's story in his documentary, "A World of Conflict."