'The people who should have loved me hurt me for life': Child bride, 11, who set herself ablaze to avoid marriage reveals father violently BEAT her for 'shaming' her family

Mashid Rezai, now 36, was 11 when she tried to commit suicide

Set herself ablaze to avoid arranged marriage to much older man

Violent father beat her as she lay recovering in her hospital bed

Aged 13, she fled to Tehran and was taken in by a kind surgeon

Forced to leave Iran because of her injuries and seek asylum in UK

People would attack her in street and throw stones because of scars

Says she hopes her story will help others in same situation

Twisting her skirt nervously in her hands, it is clear that life for Mashid Rezai, from northern Iran, hasn't been easy - and that talking about it is harder still.

Aged 11, she doused herself in petrol and set herself ablaze in a bid to avoid an arranged marriage to a man more than 20 years her senior.

Now 36, she remains terribly scarred and was forced to flee to London to escape her father - a man so violent he beat his daughter in hospital as she recovered from her burns.

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Common: Mashid says child weddings are common in Iran and girls as young as nine are married off

'Yes I resent the people who didn’t help me,' admits Mashid, who is too ashamed of her scars to be photographed. 'The people who should have loved me did not protect me. They hurt me for life.'

Growing up in a remote village, Mashid says her childhood was a relatively happy one although she, her mother and her three brothers were all terrified of the family patriarch.

'My mother was my father’s fourth wife,' she explains. 'He didn't have children with his other wives. My mother told me that all three of his previous wives ran away because he beat them.'

And his all too busy fists weren't just directed at his wife. 'I remember once he tied my hands and feet with rope to a piece of wood and he and my mother beat me with another piece of wood,' she remembers.

'They were angry with me because I had gone to the gate at the front of our house to watch a wedding procession and they did not like the families holding the wedding.'

Despite the violence, Mashid says she was a happy child who enjoyed her studies at the village school and loved playing with her brothers.

Scarred: Mashid was badly scarred by her suicide attempt and was reluctant to be photographed as a result

Shocking: Mashid's friend Zainab was, like this girl, aged just nine years old when she died

The area she grew up in, close to the city of Arak, was, she says, 'beautiful' and she had plenty of friends with whom to enjoy it, among them a girl named Zainab.

With both of her parents working in the fields, Mashid was expected to take on the bulk of household chores and shared cooking duties with her mother.

But the peace of her childhood was about to come to an end when Zainab, then just nine years old, was asked for by a much older man.

'She was very beautiful and tall,' remembers Mashid, her voice cracking slightly and tears welling up in her eyes. 'People noticed her.'

Desperate to escape the marriage being forced upon her, Zainab resorted to extreme measures.



'She burnt herself,' whispers Mashid. 'And she died.' Zainab's death would prove to have chilling consequences for her friend.

Less than a year after her friend's suicide, Mashid's father announced that she too had been found a husband - despite the fact his daughter was just 11 years old.



'My mother came to me at home and told me that the next afternoon a man would come and ask me for my hand in marriage,' she explains.

'I asked her who it was and she told me the name of a man who lived in our village, who was married and had two children. I was only 11 years old and he was 35.'

Mashid was distraught. 'I was crying,' she says as tears well up in her eyes once more. 'I told my mother that he already had a wife and children.



'I said I was only 11 years old. I told her I wanted to be a teacher, because I loved my teacher. But she insisted that I would get married to this man.'

The girl ran to her teacher, hoping for help, but was told nothing could be done. Mashid then ran to hide in the mountains but, fearful of being eaten by a wolf, returned home and hid in an outbuilding.

'My parents found me and assumed that because I had returned home I was agreeing to the wedding,' she says.

Remote: Mashid grew up in this remote part of northern Iran, the child of a farmer and his wife

Home: Mashid's family live in a village near the city of Arak in north western Iran



CHILD BRIDE HOTSPOTS: 20 COUNTRIES WITH HIGHEST NUMBER OF UNDERAGE WIVES

1. Niger 2. Chad 3. Central African Republic 4. Bangladesh 5. Guinea 6. Mozambique 7. Mali 8. Burkina Faso 9. South Sudan 10. Malawi 11. Madagascar 12. Eritrea 13. India 14. Somalia 15. Sierra Leone 16. Zambia 17. Dominican Republic 18. Ethiopia 19. Nepal 20. Nicaragua

Source: UNICEF

' I still couldn’t really believe that it was actually true, that it was going to happen. But when I saw my family preparing food and setting out tables, I knew really it was going to happen.'

Desperate to avoid marriage and with her friend Zainab's example in mind, Mashid ran into the kitchen, took out a bottle of paraffin, doused herself in the contents and set herself ablaze.

'I was panicking,' she explains. 'I just wanted to escape so I tried to kill myself. My father had lots of weapons and I considered using them but I chose fire because I was following what my friend Zainab had done.

'I poured some paraffin on my skirt and I lit a match. My skirt caught fire. When I saw the fire, it was intense and very real. I regretted it. I tried to put the fire out with my hands.



'I tried to get out but I had shut the door and it was difficult. I was panicking. The flame was raging and was burning my face.

'I could see flames in my hair. I managed to get out into the courtyard. A neighbour was on the flat roof next door. He saw me and jumped down. I don’t know what happened after that.'

Mashid spent the next three months unconscious in hospital in Arak, although even that wasn't enough to spare her from the wrath of her father who was furious that his plans had been foiled and fearful for the family honour.

'I was screaming constantly every day,' she remembers of the months that followed. 'I had open skin when they changed the bandages.



'On top of that my father beat me for what I had done whilst I was at the hospital. Also once I wet myself and my mother punched me in the face. They were so angry with me.'

When Mashid left hospital, it was to return to her parents' house after her former fiance rejected her because, as she reveals, he now saw her as 'dirty' and 'ugly'.

At home, things went from bad to worse with her father becoming increasingly aggressive and even telling her that he wished she was dead.

At risk: Mashid says she and other scarred women were attacked with stones and shunned in Iran

Help: Mashid eventually fled to the Iranian capital Tehran where she was taken in by a kindly surgeon

CHILD BRIDES: THE FACTS

One third of the world’s girls are married before the age of 18

One in nine are married before the age of 15.

If present trends continue, 142 million girls will be married before their 18th birthday over the next decade. That’s an average of 14.2 million girls each year

Girls living in poor households are almost twice as likely to marry before 18 than girls in higher income households.

Girls younger than 15 are five times more likely to die in childbirth than women in their 20s.

Pregnancy is the leading cause of death worldwide for girls ages 15 to 19.

Child brides face a higher risk of contracting HIV because they often marry an older man with more sexual experience.

Girls aged between 15 and19 are two to six times more likely to contract HIV than boys of the same age in sub-Saharan Africa.

Source: International Centre for Research on Women

'My father was very aggressive,' she remembers. 'He told me I shamed the family and he was embarrassed because of how I looked.



'I overheard my father saying he wanted me to be taken to a hospital and killed with an injection.'

Unable to bear the abuse, Mashid, by then aged 13, stole some money from her parents and escaped to Tehran where she went straight to hospital.

A plastic surgeon there took pity on the child, eventually helping her to escape Iran and her violent father for good.

Now living in London, Mashid remains terribly scarred but is starting to move on with her life, helped by the Iranian and Kurdish Women's Rights Organisation.

Her family, however, remain in Iran and she hasn't spoken to them for more than 20 years. 'It was dangerous for me to stay in Iran,' she adds.

'As burnt, scarred woman, I was vilified. People attacked me. They insulted me, pulled at my clothing and children threw stones at me. I was always scared. I had to run away.'

In London, at least, she has found some measure of acceptance and says she would even contemplate a relationship, even though her view of men remains coloured by her father's behaviour.



'I was so surprised when I first arrived [in London] because people did not point at me or throw stones at me,' she remembers. 'It was such a relief.

'Since being here, I have been trying to come to terms with what happened to me. I want to study, which I didn’t have the chance to before.



'Then I want to help girls and women at risk of early and forced marriage, so they don’t end up like me.'



As for her family, Mashid says she will never contact them and never wants to see Iran again. ' I can never return,' she continues.

'I can’t bear to. Everything bad that has happened to me happened there. I could not have a moment of peace there. Even thinking of Iran means I cannot even have peace.'