People Can Hear You

Gabrielle Lord: In 2014, I published a novel titled Dishonour, about an Iraqi girl in Australia who is desperate to avoid a forced marriage to a cousin back in Iraq and the female police officer who tries to help her. The fictitious 18 year old Rana fears she will be taken out of the country against her will and forced to marry a man who is almost twice her age and who is “traditional” in his religious observance. This means that the intended fiancé lives his life under sharia law, and that Rana’s position back in Iraq would be that of a subservient, second-class human being, a servant subject to the domination and sanctioned violence of her husband and his family, relegated to childbearing and endless cooking. Rana rejects this; she wants that most basic of all human rights: the right to self-determination. She wants to complete her pharmacy degree, as well as follow her heart. She has become attracted to Christianity, is in the process of converting, and is in love with a…