Parvin a compassionate young woman from Los Angeles:
A RESCUED GIRL NOW AT THE ALTER OF MARRIAGE
Last night we wed away the girl whom we had rescued from her troubling life. We could not help crying. It was exactly sixteen years ago, when I went to an Iranian store to buy my most favorite magazine, Javanan. The clerk always struck up a conversation with me, was immersed in reading a magazine and did not hear my greeting. Once he looked up, I noticed tears rolling down his face. I asked him what was bothering him. With a lump in his throat he said, “my heart is on fire for this little girl.” He showed me the picture of a little girl who ran in Javanan’s weekly events, her face was covered with bandages, lying on a hospital bed in Iran. Back at home, I began reading the whole story about the girl, she had been molested by her step mother. The story continued to say that once her step mother had her own first child, she tried to somehow do away with this innocent angelic little girl. She would try to provoke her father against her. She even made up fake stories and portrayed her as a hassle to deal with around home. Deeply affected by his wife’s tempting, her father, in a rage began beating her with his belt or slapping her face. As a child of an abusive marriage, living in an abusive home, took it’s toll. At the age of seven, she went to school with bruises from the night before. The last time he ever hit her, he took her by the shoulders and threw her headfirst into the closet. The next morning when the innocent little girl went to school, she passed out, in the class room. Having rushed her to the hospital and getting the necessary treatment, still she was afraid to say anything about her abusive family. When her treating doctor assured her that they would not to disclose her story, she revealed her suffering ordeal to him. Overwhelmed with her plague, made me sleepless and I began talking to my husband about it. An agonizing 24 hours later, my husband and I began to turn to each other sayomg, “Crying and blaming would not do anything. We must do something. Saving this little kid would be absolutely wonderful.” I was speechless and in a state of shock and hopelessness.
For a long time we had been hearing of some atrocities committed by some families in Iran. But this was so enormous. My husband and I had lingering talks with our daughters about how to save this little girl. I finally made up my mind and packed up to go to Iran. Upon arrival, I was warmly received by my sister. Finding this young girl would make me so happy. Once my family learned of my decision, they just said that this kind of child molestation is too rampant in Iran and nobody cares about this horrible phenomenon. After a week of sorrow and hopelessness, I started asking people I anyone knew of a way to get a clue about that little girl? I thought, that I must intervene before the problem got into an even worse situation. I left no stone unturned to find a lead about the whereabouts of this molested little girl. Eventually, I found a young man at his twenties in the Islamic Revolutionary committee near my sister’s neighborhood, who promised to help me find that girl. He asked me to remain anonymous and that I should not reveal his identity. The next day, I got the full information from him about the girl. Now, I found myself in the slums of Tehran, Iran. After knocking at the door, I found a woman who looked very shrewd and received me with a kind of humiliating attitude. Once I raised the subject about the story that had run in Javanan, that they were going to give up their daughter to a family, her eyes began glowing and she asked about my conditions. I just told her that I wanted to raise her as my own daughter in America. Then she asked, ‘how much I was going to pay for adopting her daughter? Did I have some three thousand dollars in my possession?’ I promised to come back the next day with the cash. The next morning came and I hit the road to their house. By coincidence, the little girl was returning home at the very same moment. She looked like she was dying in slow motion, like a walking corpse, her hair was falling out from malnutrition. It seemed astthough she had lost so much weight that her jeans were falling off, instead of buying her new cloths that fit, she had to belt her pants, gathering them up so much. Her pony tail was so thin that she had wrapped a scrunch around it four times instead of two. Her right eyebrow and eyelashes had disappeared, leaving only straggly hairs behind. Now, her father was at the doorstep, I handed over the cash but he rebuffed the funds and haggled for more, he wanted five thousand dollars. When I accepted his offer, he still was reluctant to follow the legal procedure to give away his daughter. I told him that I was going to raise her as my own daughter in the united States.
Now, I had to undergo some really strict legal channels to get the adoption order for the little innocent angel. I swayed and twisted around to get the legal documents to take this abused little girl with me to America. At last, my petition was finally approved by a nice guy working in the Iranian judiciary department and I took my little angel to my brother’s home. She was still suffering from the trauma done by her cruel father. She was so nervous. She was sleepless and so scared. Her little hands shook whenever she tried to eat. Within two weeks, I was able to get her picture put in my own passport as my daughter and just as we were about to leave Iran for the United States, the bubble of my happiness burst when her father showed up at my brother’s home. He pretended that he had already backed out on his word and wanted to get his daughter back. When my brother asked him to revert the money, he refused and said that it was already gone and now he was asking for some more money! At that point, we told him that we were going to call the police and he disappeared in a flash. I breathed a sigh of relief and went back inside the house.
The next morning my daughter and I boarded the huge Jumbo Jet bound to Frankfurt, while my injured little angel slept peacefully. Now that she is living with us, the color has returned to her cheek. For the first time in months, I saw my daughter laugh. She is grown now and just last week, she was gushing about how she and her fiancé were planning a trip to Las Vegas. I am thrilled to be having her wedding with her favorite partner held in my home. After the ceremony was over, I rushed up to congratulate her and told her how proud I am of her. She gave me a big hug and said, “Dear Mom, I love you so much. You saved my life. I am now free from abuse and free to live a happy and love filled life in America. I will never ever forget that what you have done for me. You are always in my heart.”