Dawn
Active member
Karachi, PakistanCNN —
Holding a mirror steady in one hand, Arzo carefully applies pencil to her brows as she gets ready for an English lesson a short walk from her home on the outskirts of Pakistani megacity Karachi.
Every step toward the classroom takes her closer to a future she no longer thought possible almost a year ago when she walked downstairs at her family’s home in Afghanistan and tried to take her own life.
“On that day, I felt like everything was over. I was overwhelmed by hopelessness, and that’s why I drank acid, convinced it would end my life,” said Arzo, whom CNN first met last November as she lay in bed, too weak to speak.
At the time, she was 15 years old but weighed as much as a 4-year-old, her limbs painfully thin after months of starvation despite her siblings’ best efforts to feed her through a tube inserted in her stomach.
Now, after an extraordinary intervention, Arzo is making a remarkable recovery – but she faces a new threat that could force her family to return to Afghanistan, and a life under Taliban rule that has become so intolerable for women and girls that some would rather die.
Holding a mirror steady in one hand, Arzo carefully applies pencil to her brows as she gets ready for an English lesson a short walk from her home on the outskirts of Pakistani megacity Karachi.
Every step toward the classroom takes her closer to a future she no longer thought possible almost a year ago when she walked downstairs at her family’s home in Afghanistan and tried to take her own life.
“On that day, I felt like everything was over. I was overwhelmed by hopelessness, and that’s why I drank acid, convinced it would end my life,” said Arzo, whom CNN first met last November as she lay in bed, too weak to speak.
At the time, she was 15 years old but weighed as much as a 4-year-old, her limbs painfully thin after months of starvation despite her siblings’ best efforts to feed her through a tube inserted in her stomach.
Now, after an extraordinary intervention, Arzo is making a remarkable recovery – but she faces a new threat that could force her family to return to Afghanistan, and a life under Taliban rule that has become so intolerable for women and girls that some would rather die.
Her courage offers hope for others.
