I belong to a very poor family in a small village in the district of Rahim Yar Khan. I always wanted to study but because of reservations from my family and bad financial conditions, I was not able to enroll in school or get an education. We are 2 sisters and my father never had a steady job. 

I was 16 years old when I was married off to a man based in Sialkot. My marriage lasted for 5 years. Those were the most traumatizing years of my life. My husband was into a number of vices including drugs and womanizing and the company he kept was dubious. He kept pushing me to do questionable things, things that clashed strongly with the values I held. It was difficult to say no to him in the beginning, I was very young afterall. But after the birth of my daughters I gained courage. My husband did not change, and I decided to leave him and come back to Rahim Yar Khan.   

Over here, the problem sets were different – lack of support from my family and financial issues. Now we had 2 more mouths to feed. 

Grooming was something that I was always fond off. I liked working on others to make them more presentable, it was my art form. I recently joined workshops that train females on all the various skill sets required in the trade of beautician in my village. Now I am learning the trade in more detail. This is something I want to pursue in the future as well. I want to do something for my daughters; create a better life for them. One day I hope to open up my own salon in my village and will keep striving to fulfill this vision of mine.