Moroccan Woman’s Brave Stand Against Forced Marriage Reshapes Her Destiny

"I want to show that making your own choices and protecting yourself is not a luxury, but a necessity. We chart our own course by choosing for ourselves every day. Just like me when, at fifteen, I chose to stand up," she confides. Her parents wanted to marry her off at that age to a man in his thirties. On her way home from school, she finds this man in the living room with her father. Her mother asks her to go upstairs to freshen up. But she does not obey. She walks up to the young man, looks him straight in the eye and says, "You can leave. There’s nothing to take here." Her father, angry, asks her to withdraw. But Barka insists: "No. I’m not going with this man. I’m not getting married. And if you don’t accept it, then find another girl." Embarrassed, the man left with his gifts.

"You have covered us with shame," her father shouted, blaming her mother for giving her "too free an education." Barka’s parents had an arranged marriage. Her mother was 11 when she married her father, who was 9 years older. The couple argued constantly. "At our place, there were often arguments and violence. My mother and I have taken refuge in women’s shelters several times. But my mother always went back to him. Out of shame and because she thought it was better for me. She had nowhere else to go. The police even stopped coming at one point," she recounts, adding that "at that time, in the 1980s, marriages before the age of 18 were still possible, especially in families from the first generation of migrants. Today, that would be considered child abuse."

Aware that other suitors would come to ask for her hand, Barka decides to run away. "It wasn’t an impulsive action, but a well-thought-out decision. I knew I was leaving everything behind, but staying would have been a betrayal of myself." She took her bike and went to the shelter in Sittard. "I showed up one afternoon at the center, and that same evening I had already spoken to a social worker and got a room. Not really where you hope to end up as a teenager, but it was safe. Here, I wouldn’t risk a forced marriage," she details. The following autumn, she takes a training course in Valkenburg, "It was a program where you learn, step by step, to live independently. I received support for cooking, cleaning, managing money and building a social network."

Meanwhile, her parents eventually divorced. "My mother finally made the courageous decision and, like me, chose for herself. After their separation, I often went by bike to see my mother, from Valkenburg to Sittard. But I didn’t go back home. She had her own problems. She had married at eleven, had me at twelve. She was still a child when she had a child. It was her moment, her chance to live freely." Unfortunately, Barka lost her mother in 2012. At her funeral in Morocco, she saw her father for the first time in over 20 years, sick and unable to speak. "I told him everything I had always wanted to say. At the tear that rolled down his cheek, I understood that he regretted. I had the impression that the roles had reversed: I could empty my heart and he listened. I left the past behind. I no longer blamed my parents; they too had only followed what centuries-old traditions had taught them."

Barka did not have an easy adult life. She made a lot of bad choices. At 19, she left Limburg for Amsterdam. "There, I went out with friends, sat on terraces, met new people. I wanted to discover and live everything that had been forbidden to me until then. I especially wanted to live. Experiment with everything... Since I lacked love in my life, I have always felt the need to beautify the world by giving a lot of love, in the hope of receiving it in return... I often ended up with men who were not good for me... It broke me. It shaped the image I had of men." At 25, she got into a relationship with a good man, but ended up breaking up. "... I was used to bad, unreliable or dangerous men. A conflict-free relationship seemed foreign and stifling to me; my instinct automatically sought out problems, when it was simply good."

After a year and a half in the Netherlands, she decided to move to Bulgaria. "Not for any specific reason, but because I wanted a place that wasn’t ordinary. I had to move forward, like a true nomad," explains Barka, who now lives in Sofia. "It makes me grateful. I am a happy woman. I feel serenity and gratitude for everything. Yes, even for my past. It led me to where I am now. As soon as I wake up, I put on my walking shoes and go for a one-hour walk. This start to the day always gives me the feeling of a new chance," Barka specifies. And she concludes: "My story is not that of a victim, but of someone who stood up and chose for herself. This is what I try to convey: you can always choose again and live your life as you see fit."