Knees forced up against their particular chest, Sakina huddles near the windows out of a great sparsely furnished home. Their face try illuminated of the a solitary beam out-of sunlight sneaking to your cooler place. It can make shadows in the petite lady who’s covered with an effective ragged shawl.
Sakina, twenty-two, is actually a teen whenever she is sold from the their unique family relations to have step one,200 rupees (?15) so you’re able to a complete stranger avove the age of sixty. Their particular sibling, which organised the deal, got cheated Sakina by presenting an excellent “younger good-looking” chap till the wedding ceremony. She are surprised at seeing elderly people guy toward relationships evening. Made powerless because of the childhood and poverty, there clearly was no stay away from to your fiance. “No-one forced me to,” she said.
Uprooted away from her household within the Kolkata, Sakina are provided for live at a distance in the Pakharpora, a tiny village on Budgam area of one’s Kashmir valley.