She’s A 27-Year-Old Poet, Humanitarian, And Rapper Who Has Been Fighting Against Child Marriage
What if I told you that one of today’s most influential young activists is a rapper?
Sonita Alizadeh is a 27-year-old poet, humanitarian, and rapper who has been fighting against child marriage with the power of her words.
Sonita was born in Afghanistan in 1996. As a child, Afghanistan was under Taliban rule, so she fled to Iran with her parents and siblings as refugees.
After traveling hundreds of miles, her family finally settled at a refugee camp in Tehran.
Sonita began working at a young age to help support her family and eventually got an education through a local volunteer organization that taught Afghan girls in her area.
After learning to read and write, Sonita became very interested in writing poetry and music.
Sonita started writing songs about her life as a refugee and leaving her home. Although she started writing pop music, everything changed when she heard her first song by famous American rapper Eminem and found that she preferred rap music.
She loved how expressive and passionate Eminem was on the track, even if she didn’t understand the words.
It was uncommon and, in some situations, illegal for a woman to speak her mind on political issues in Iran, but she did it anyway and wrote her first rap on child labor.
Coetzee/peopleimages.com- Stock.Adobe.com, illustrative purposes only, not the actual person
When she was 16, Sonita lived in Iran alone after her family returned to Afghanistan to plan one of her brother’s weddings. That’s when she learned that her family was considering selling her into marriage and that her mother had found a man to marry and “buy her.”
Upon hearing this news, Sonita wrote her viral and powerful rap, “Daughters For Sale,” a song against forced marriage, which is tragically a common issue in her home country as many families sell their daughters into marriage to escape poverty.
Sonita recorded a music video for “Daughters For Sale” and uploaded it to YouTube around the same time documentarian Rokhsareh Ghaemmaghami made a film on her life and experience escaping a forced marriage titled, Sonita.
It was released in 2016 and won awards at the Sundance Film Festival.
Since her song and video went viral, Sonita has been living in the United States and continuing to raise awareness against forced child marriages publicly. She’s spoken at the United Nations and has worked with famous activists and Nobel Laureates.
Sonita also created a curriculum on child marriage which has been shared with one million students.
Sonita has been studying music and human rights at the esteemed Bard College in New York and is set to graduate this year. Congratulations, Sonita!
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