* At the age of 14, I was separated from my mother in Pakistan to go and live with my father in New Zealand. At the age of 16, I ran away from my father's house to escape an arranged marriage. I am Sehar Moughal. This is my story. (HAUNTING MUSIC) Stop! At that point, my dad just grabbed her... Please don't! ...and just started hitting her really hard, pulling her hair, and he was suffocating her. MUFFLED: Please don't! And we were shocked. We couldn't do anything. And that's when I think he... made that decision ` you know, that we were going to go back home to Pakistan and get married. (TAPE REWINDS) (LAUGHTER) Growing up in Pakistan, there were six of us ` five sisters and a youngest brother. We lived in an apartment, and my uncle and his family lived with us, so we would sleep on the floor. We had mattresses on the floor, and Mum would sleep in the middle, and three of us would sleep at each side of her. I loved my mum, and every night we would fight to sleep next to her. I think I always won. (LAUGHS) I think I was my mum's pet. I always got away with... I could even fight with my youngest brother. If he wanted to sleep with Mum, he needs to sleep on the other side and I'll sleep on the other side. (LAUGHS) My mum was there. I was happy. Dad lived overseas in Australia. He was financially supporting our mum and us. I have never had any connection with Dad. I loved my mum, and I didn't see how my mum and dad fitted together. We were quite scared of him. When we were little, when we were in Pakistan, he was superior to everyone. My mum was scared of him, his family, my mum's family. Everyone just seemed to be scared of him, when he travelled to Pakistan. People called my dad Hitler. It's what the family called him, my uncles called him, my aunties called my dad ` that he was a Hitler. So that fear was ingrained in us, even as kids. It's not a name we came up with. The earliest memory that I have of him, we were eating and then he said to Sehar to go and close the door, and I ran, because, again, I love my father, so I ran and I` to gain his approval, I shut the door. And when I returned back, he started hitting both Sehar and I. He said that, 'If I've asked one person, why does the other person do something?' His visits were almost like a burden, so I never missed him when he left. We'd just wait for him to go back, and then we'd resume our lives again. But life wasn't easy in Pakistan. You know, Dad would send us money, but it was never enough. There were times when we had to take loans. Mum trusted me quite a lot, and I looked after her finances. You know, she didn't teach me how to do it, but I just picked up on it. I would go to people and I would ask them, you know, 'This is happening at home. Is there something that I can get some money?' I think I had a reputation where people actually trusted me at that point. I don't know how I built that, but I did. Maybe it's because I looked really harmless. And so people would give me money, and I'd go home and I'd say to Mum, you know, 'Look, we have enough money now.' She would just smile, and that was it. Her smile meant that I was successful. It was quite strange looking back, because I was a girl, and I was quite young. But I was happy because I had this other role that I was playing for my mum. And I would do anything for her. She was my only reason. You know, I copied her and I would play teacher when nobody was around, cos my mum was a teacher. So my life revolved around her. For her, education was so important that even when we're little, she never gave us Barbie dolls or toys. We used to get books. When people would come to our house they would find it really unnatural. Because they'd say, 'How are your kids so quiet?' And I remember just sitting there and reading. Mum told us that if you wanna succeed, you need to have knowledge. You need to learn; you need to educate yourself. But there came a point where, obviously, the financial struggles that we were having, as I was growing older, came to the point where sometimes my school fees were not paid. I was probably around 10 and... We get roll calls. So the teacher would say, 'Is this person present, and have you paid your fees?' So we usually show the fee card. And there came a point where my fees were not being paid. The vice principal comes back and he says to me, 'Get out of the school grounds', and sent the security guards. And I remember sitting there and, you know, they were making fun of me and saying, 'Oh, your fees are not paid. Where is your dad?' and blah, blah, blah, and I just sat there the whole time. And I think that was... That's something that I still can't deal with, because he was punishing me for something that I had no control over. And I kept thinking, 'You could take away my books, and you can take away everything, 'but you can't take away what's already in there.' And even as a kid, I remember thinking that. You know, just because the vice principal thought we didn't have enough money does not mean that I don't get access to the same knowledge as the rest of us, and I think that was my drive. In 2003, my dad came for his visit. He said, 'You're going to have a surprise party.' Everybody was invited ` his family was invited; my family was invited; friends he'd invited that I had no idea existed. And we had food, and I was really enjoying myself. And then all of a sudden he comes in and he's like, 'OK, all four of you, stand in a line and put your hand out. Close your eyes.' So I'm really nervous, and I shut my eyes and I have my palm open. When I open them there's a passport in my hand, and I don't get it. When I looked at the passport, I knew that things are going to change now ` for the worst. My dad says 'go to this page', and it says that we'd be flying to New Zealand in a week's time. (APPLAUSE) Everybody was enjoying the party. They were happy for us that, you know, our dad has done something and he's taking us overseas. But for myself, personally, I was just standing there thinking, 'What is happening? Where are we going? What's that place? 'I don't know him as a person. Who's taking me overseas?' I look at Mum, and she's got tears in her eyes, and I look at my passport. But I have a passport; my mum doesn't have a passport. Just... It's like the whole world has turned upside down, because we were not ready for that. And it's... Sorry. I just look at Mum, and I know she's not gonna be there, and I just burst out, and I cry and cry. All of us are crying, and we huddle together and we hug. Not my father. Everybody started coming over to us, hugging us, telling us, you know, that it's a good step, but we didn't know what it meant. We didn't know what was coming. And I remember someone saying, you know, 'Let's take a photo.' I wanted to cry over there. I couldn't. I couldn't, because the whole family was looking at us, and they were congratulating us for doing this, and I looked at my mum, and I looked at my other sisters, and we all` I could smell fear. We don't know what the future holds. I'm leaving someone that I really, really love and going to someone that I don't even know. (OMINOUS MUSIC) (MENACING MUSIC) Before we left Pakistan with our dad, things were really rushed, because people... my father's side of the family wanted to do shopping for us, and they wanted to buy clothes appropriate, because it was apparently going to be really cold in this new country. Mum said to me I can't cry, that I've got to be strong, that I know that Mehwish, my older sister, she's quite emotional, and, you know, the twins are going to cry, but I've got to be strong, because if I cry, then Mum is going to cry. We go to the airport, and I remember every single person that I know is crying. I think that was... (VOICE BREAKS) the worst night, I'd say, of my life. The last time I hugged my mum, I just cried. My father says, 'We are going in,' and as soon as I go in, all the tears go up. Cos I'm like, 'OK, this is serious,' you know? We're going to a place and everything is new, and I think... at that point you're in, you know, flight and fright` fight response. You know, switch off all your emotions, and you've got to focus. I had to mourn the loss of my mum when she was still alive. I had to pretend that she was dead so I could get on with my life, you know, like` where she was the centre of my life. His side of the story is that he wanted to give us a better future, but what we heard later on was that he did not trust my mum, because the family kept on saying that, you know, she's not taking care of us. So we come to New Zealand. It's dark; it's grey; it's cold; it's horrible. There's nobody on the streets, and we get into a taxi and my dad says, 'Find the seat belt,' and I'm looking at my sister. I'm like, 'What does he mean?' We've never seen a seat belt. We travel in those rickshaws, those three-wheel drives, where there are no seat belts, nothing at all. My dad looks back, and when he says, 'Have you done your seatbelt?' and, you know, I can't, because it's stuck, and he just slaps me then, and he says, 'This is how you put it.' We've never had a father role model ` never in Pakistan ` because our dad has always been overseas. So we don't know ` is this what fathers do? I was thinking, 'OK, God, what other things do I need to make sure 'that I need to learn so I don't get into the same thing with him?' So we go to our house, and it's just quiet. It's so quiet. Back in Pakistan, we had people. There were people everywhere 24/7, and now it's just us, and we have three rooms in this house, as well, and Dad says to us, 'OK, go and put your stuff away.' So we, all four of us, huddled into this one room. Our dad says, 'No, no, no.' Two of us would sleep in one room, and two of us would sleep in the other room. And we look at each other, and we're thinking, 'But we've always slept together. We've always slept in the same bed.' So, anyways, we go and sleep in separate beds, but at night, we come together. It was funny the way we used to sleep. (LAUGHS) We had a queen-sized bed, so it was quite small. So, like, three sleep longitude, and one sleep like that, yeah. Which was nice, which was nice to just stay together. So we went to Aorere College, and it's in Papatoe, and I remember going to the school. We were put into an English language class, because we couldn't speak much English. We could hardly, at that time, understand what was going on in the class. The students all around us were joking, laughing, just enjoying themselves while we're sitting there stressing out. I remember I was bullied quite a lot in high school because I was really tiny, and my accent was really thick, and I couldn't understand some of the Kiwi slang, which I do now. So it was quite a difficult time, but I knew all I needed was one person to believe in me. I first met them when they arrived in my office door one morning, these four sisters. I was just so impressed with their commitment and their total devotion to their studies. Time and time again, I had some amazing teachers that saw the potential, and I had knowledge, for the first time. You know, the teacher didn't send me out of the classroom because my fees wasn't paid. And I discovered the library at school, so I would have so many books, and I would take them home, and I remember that we had the curtain, and I'd slightly move the curtain, cos the street light would come in, and I would just read my story books there, and I'd hear Dad walk, cos our floor was wooden, and as soon as he'd walk, I'd just put it away and pretend that I'm sleeping. So he'd check up on us quite a few times during the night, and then he'd go out, and I'd take it out again. But I loved it. There was no restrictions; there was knowledge; and there just so much knowledge. I loved that time at school, and I dreaded the time when the school finished and he was waiting outside, and we had to go and sit in the car. His ways were just so harsh, and just always so angry for some reason. Everything was really scheduled. So everything needed to be done on time, in his way. So if you chop onion, you need to cut it a certain way. You clean the shoes, do it a certain way. We had cooking rosters, so each day of the week, we had to cook the same thing. Girls! My older sister, Mehwish, she's a vegetarian, so she never liked meat at all. But every week, on that certain day, we had to cook lamb and beef. It smelled so much. Most of the time, I would give it to Annum or Sehar. They would be the ones. Like, Sabah was vegetarian, so I would give my food to them. But there were times when it was really hard to do that. So we had a paper towel on our laps, and we'd just put the meat on there when he's not looking. One day, I remember that he went through the rubbish bin, and he found the lamb, and he asked us to eat it ` from the rubbish bin. It felt as if we were living in a prison. It was a house. It was a beautiful house. We had everything, but I wasn't happy. You know, it wasn't a home. It felt like a prison. I'm not really sure why he was so angry at us. I remember one day the clothes were hanging outside, and it was sunny, and then suddenly it started raining, and he got really upset with us, and he started hitting us. Initially it was just very, you know, strict. So his voice is quite loud. Then it started with a simple slap, and then he was physically abusive towards us as well. It didn't seem right. We knew that it was wrong, but we couldn't do anything about it. It was just every single step that we took. It felt as if even our breathing was becoming a problem to him. There was one incident that happened with me, and I think it scared my sisters as well. I did not know what was coming. He just slapped me. And all of a sudden, you just see my dad grabbing Annum from her hair` Please don't! ...and just dragging her into the living room, on to the beanbag. And just started hitting her really hard with his, you know... Her hair` I'm my mind I'm just praying` 'Someone just stop this. Someone just stop this,' because it was getting out of hand. And then he tried to suffocate me on the bean bag. I didn't think he was going to stop. I didn't think he was going to let me go. We didn't know what to do, and if Mehwish wasn't there, I don't know what's gonna happen, because she told him to stop. I went into the room and I said, 'You need to stop', and then he turned around, and I think he slapped me. At that time he made it very clear ` if he tells us something, we're supposed to do it or there will be consequences ` and that could just even mean that, 'I'll kill you as well.' * Seeing my other sister, you know, being beaten up, finalised it for us that things were getting to the point where it was really dangerous. After watching that beating, I sort of thought that, yeah, he can go to any level. It just felt that we were scared. We were scared for our lives. On that day it was just` He crossed a line, and I knew that if we don't really do anything now, it could end up one of us could be dead. We decided that we would have to tell someone. They told me that there was... physical violence and bad beatings, and we discussed together what we could do, and we discussed involving Child, Youth and Family. We just told them everything, and we're just sitting there thinking, 'OK, you are going to help us now. 'What's the next step? You tell us, because we don't know.' So... Child, Youth and Family people interviewed the girls and took them to a place where they'd be safe. They said to my sister and me that, 'We will have to find four different foster homes for you girls. 'So you would be separated. Nobody can take four of you together.' They were probably trying to explain to us the consequences of our... thing, if you run away. But at that time, I just felt that they were trying to scare us from the decision. That's what I thought as a 16-year-old. They said to us` They said, 'We will bring in your dad, and you can have a chat with him, 'and, you know, it's just anger-management issues. 'It's just anger that he has,' and in our head, we were thinking, 'It's not.' It was, obviously, quite scary. Because the person you're scared of` We tried to run away without him knowing, and all of a sudden, you want us to confront him. They said, 'If you feel at any point uncomfortable, just tap on the table.' So in that meeting, when we were sitting with the case worker and a mediator ` I'm not really sure who it was ` he was crying in front of them. But in our language, he was saying, 'I'm gonna show you guys.' We saw the anger in his eyes, and we just burst into tears, because we were so... There was so much fear. I remember tapping on the table, that it means, they said to us, that if we felt unsafe, they would take us away, and I remember just tapping on the table, and I realised that they were just ignoring us, and that night, we went home with Dad. (TENSE MUSIC) At that time, I thought that it was a lost battle, that we did do a very courageous thing at the risk that he would be getting more violent, but... we still did it. And going back to him,... yeah, it was tough. This meeting took place, and I wasn't aware of it, and I was really disappointed that the girls were not given the opportunity to have advocates with them, and I would gladly have gone. In fact, I've been to many such meetings, and it just changes the whole tenor of the meeting. Yeah, I was disappointed and... somewhat pessimistic. From our point of view, at that point, we have no hope. Me, personally, I'll try and just stay as quiet as I can and don't say anything. If he is saying, 'This is how it should be done,' just try and go with it, cos obviously, you don't wanna get beaten up. I lost a lot of self-esteem. I wouldn't` I just felt that, you know, I was not good enough. So I started to hide behind my sisters. He was training us like robots. Like, just going shopping ` to walk in a line, and our schoolmates, they used to laugh at us. They're like, 'Why do you walk in a line?' That's what we've been told to do. Again, I think for me, we had just normalised it. It was just so much fear. You try and find pockets where he is not there so you can relax. They were having to, sort of, be vigilant all the time, and when you're being vigilant all the time in the place that you're supposed to be safe and relaxed in, then, yeah, it affects you psychologically. It's not good for you. School was a safe space for us. We were just getting away from everything. But we knew that in the last period in the school, we would just be like, 'Oh shit, we are going home now.' Friends that we would giggle and laugh with in school, when Dad was there, they would see it was just as if... we had this mask. All four of us were hurting, but we never talked about it. We never, ever talked about it. We never talked about how we were feeling. It was just about, 'What do we have to do next?' That was it. We get told that, 'Your third mother is coming to stay with you, 'and make sure you call her Mum, Mummy or whatever.' All we knew at that time was that she's Italian, and she's our third mum, and she's just going to come and stay with us. I remember he went and picked her up from Australia; he brought her back, and we loved her from the beginning. She could never replace our mother, but she was very fun to be around. She was a very friendly lady, and even though we never called her Mother, but we had that kind of connection, and we were starting to get used to her being around. She used to cook for us nice food. She would bake things for us when we'd come back from school. She'd pick us from school. So that took away the burden that Dad was coming to pick us up. We'd dress up, and we'd dance together, and we'd watch TV together, and it was a very happy time for us, and I thought, 'Hey, I could live like this.' It was lovely. That time with her, we connected with her, which annoyed him... which annoyed him, because she would take our side. I think, to be honest, I think he was jealous that she was spending more time with us than him. But then there came a point where Dad was upset about something and he had a massive tantrum. When I was in high school, I was given an opportunity to do a university paper ` a statistics paper ` and I was doing my assignment, and it was my turn to cook. Me and Sabah didn't have exams. We had finished our exams. So we said, 'OK, we will cook.' He said, 'But it's your turn to cook', and then I remember him throwing my computer and my books from the window. My sister says, 'My work is on my computer,' and he says, 'It's not your computer. It's my computer.' And he starts tearing the books that are there. I sat there and I'm thinking, 'You can't take it away. It's in the head already.' You know, 'You can rip whatever you want, but it's in there, and you can't stop that.' I realised that we are not here to study. I just knew that. I was like, 'It's going to get worse.' And that's when I think he made that decision, you know, that we were going to go back home to Pakistan and get married. * I think that when we realised that our dad was going to get us married off in Pakistan, our instant reaction was, 'No way.' First of all, they were our cousins that he wanted us to get married to. We pretty much grew up with them. They were more like our brothers than we would see them as our husbands. It was scary. It was like someone auctioning a slave or something like that. What if that person turns out to be, like, bad? What's gonna happen then? You are stuck for the rest of your life. I knew in my heart that I am not going back, cos again, education has been a privilege for me, and I was getting it. We are starting to plan ahead what we are going to do in university ` all these different plans for our career ` and we know it's all gonna be taken away if we get married. Once our third mother left, it` Somehow something stirred in us saying we can leave too. The way she came, it was a surprise, and the way she left was a surprise too. We came home from school one day, and I saw a letter left from her. His family was forcing him to get married to someone from his own community, I guess. So that was one of the things that she left in the letter as well, that, 'I love you guys, but his family wants him to get married to someone from his own culture.' From then onwards, the only thing we talked about was getting out. All of us got together, and we have this mind map. We'll brainstorm; we'll come up with ideas. We thought, 'Look, we go back to Pakistan, we get married; 'we stay here with our dad, I don't know how long we would last.' When we started planning, everywhere, it looked like a grave. So we created graves where it was a dead end. I think my younger sisters were really hesitant, cos they were not sure what was happening. But my older sister was adamant, you know, that this would be the way. And I admire her for her courage, cos if it wasn't for her, I wouldn't have taken that step. So, you know, in the middle of the night, we'd look at ` what would we need, how much money would we need? Cos we didn't have any money at all. There was quite a lot of planning, but I think it was childish planning, cos at the end of it, we just had to contact someone. CLAIRE: They came back, and they were desperately unhappy, and they wanted to be living somewhere else where they could feel safe, and they were not... in any way inclined to involve CYFS again. So... then we had to start thinking really hard. This time round, I think, that's when Claire actually contacted Shakti. Shakti is a community-based organisation for Asian, Middle-Eastern and African communities, and we provide culturally appropriate support for women, youth and children going through family violence. They asked us a few questions at the school. We were sitting there scared again, That, you know, 'Please don't send us home this time. We don't want to go home again.' They said to us, 'Look, pack your bags and everything, and we'll get you out.' They said, 'You girls are going to live in a safe house.' We put all our books in the bag. We put our documents, passports, and things like that, because that's what we needed. We left everything he` We had jewellery; We left the jewellery over there. We had clothes; we left the clothes. I was thinking, 'I hope I don't have to come back here again.' As we were leaving, my older sister and I said to each other that, 'This is it. If we lock the key inside the house, there's no going back.' (TENSE MUSIC) I mean, now if I think about it, it was a sad moment, perhaps ` that, you know, we could have known him; he could have been a better father. But no. But I think we were really happy at that time ` really excited that, you know, that's it. We are getting away from it. So probably a moment of victory for us. (UNSETTLING MUSIC) We were told, later on, he came to pick us up, but then he is asked to go, leave, and he is gone. This time he said that, 'Tell the girls I'm not going to approach them. 'I'm not going to ask them to come back home.' (POIGNANT MUSIC) We've done our part. We've planned; we've told somebody that we needed help, and now we have to wait and sit. And things started to creep up, because again, four of us together in this contained space. Already the frustrations of, 'What is going to happen? Is it the right decision?' The safe house was definitely scary at the start, because we couldn't get out of the house. We couldn't go to school. All we wanted to do is` because I think that time our exams were going on, we wanted to go sit our exams. It was quite difficult. Our friends had found out about what was happening. Our teachers had found out about what was happening, and everybody wanted to contribute. We had teachers looking for apartments for us. We had friends looking for jobs for us. They managed to find ways to get the money and pay the bond and have us all set up, find second-hand furniture, washing machine, oven... CLAIRE: When they were moving into the flat, one Sunday, we... went to Countdown and bought lots of groceries, and we just turned up on their doorstep and filled their pantry. It made us believe in humanity again ` that, yes, good people exist, and that all you have to do is you just have to ask for help and talk to them. That's all. We were happy. You know, CYFS couldn't put us into separate houses any more. We were going to stay in one place, and it would be our own place. (GENTLE STRING MUSIC) My sisters are young... and without a custodian, so there needs to be a guardian for them. I took` I got the custody. So we did file the custody thing in the court, and I did get the guardianship, custody for my sisters ` younger sisters. I think the judge asked me, 'Are you gonna be fine with them?' or something like that, vaguely, I remember, and I did say, 'Yes, I'll be taking care of them,' and she did grant us the custody. So I was too young, and then this makes it very formal, that, yes, I need to be protecting them, so whatever happens... So, it was, yeah, way too big shoes for me to fill. (SOMBRE MUSIC) My role was to work really close with my older sister and support her. It think she was really fragile, and I think she was taking a responsibility so huge. Sehar has always been my support, and right now as well. I just feel that she's` The way she behaves is like she's the oldest one. Well, she doesn't know that I am the oldest one. With Mehwish and Sehar, they did a lot of communication together as to how things will work out, what needs to be done. They had plans in place. Once we finalised the house, we knew that we had to work. We were getting money from the government, cos we were still underage, and I think all the school organised it for us, helped us through this. And Sehar, I think got a` Annum got a job. I think I was the last one to get a job. (LAUGHS) I was the first one to work, and I was working at a florist, a flower shop, as a florist, in the Middlemore Hospital. I remember coming from Aorere College, walking to the train station and my bag would be so heavy, and I would say to myself, 'OK, another step,' and then another step, and I would just focus on my steps, and I would say to myself, 'OK, this walking, this is your life. 'This is you moving through life, not just you going to the train station.' I was aiming towards getting dux for my high school, and I would finish work at around 8, 9 at night. I'd come home and I would study until, like, 3am in the morning, cos I was so excited about life. I would get up and then I would go to school, and life was perfect. It was amazing. We can cook anything; we can eat anything. We can eat takeaways. We tried everything. (LAUGHS) A lot of chocolates, a lot of biscuits, a lot of junk food. (LAUGHS) Things were definitely different at school. We were more happier. We would talk to teachers. We would talk to our friends. We would talk to our colleagues. We would sit with them during lunchtime. We would eat with them. I made sure that I participated in all PE activities. I started playing rugby. I was the wingman. So, yeah, I enjoyed it. I love rugby, just getting dirty. It was... just setting yourself free. It was amazing. I didn't need to see them so much, because they were safe, and they were just getting on with things. Congratulations. Well done. When I got dux, I think that was the happiest moment of my life ` that I walked on that stage, and, you know, the school principal, he handed me the certificate, and I was so happy. I had done it. I had proved to people that all the bullying and everything that had happened... I did it. There are three things you need to do to create a home as warm and healthy as this ` warm it up; dry it out; air it out. Check out the three essentials for a healthy home on our website. * (INSPIRING MUSIC) So, I have finished my studies, and I am a registered psychologist. My goal is to be able to raise awareness and have solid interventions for people when they leave situations like the ones that we had. The hardest thing to do is to leave a family and know that you have nobody left, but it's more on, 'What can I do before it happens?' When I see other families, when I see` when I look at them, how they sort of react, how they sort of get along with each other, you just think that, you know, 'I wish that's what I had.' Having no parent around is difficult, and it's not just having no adult around` having a parent around. It's also about` there were no relatives around. Like, we have extended families. We have a lot of people. They just cut us out. But growing up at that time, through the teen years to 30 right now, having no one around to ask questions, right, like, 'Am I doing this life thing wrong?' (CHUCKLES) MENGZHU: In Aotearoa, you can legally leave home at age 16, but... usually, you don't have many rights until you're 18. (MELANCHOLIC PIANO MUSIC) So there was many challenges, and, I think, for them also being relatively new to the country, they had a lot to learn and a lot to try and navigate. There came a point where once I left high school and started going to the University of Auckland, I, for myself, completely crashed, cos it was enough time to... deal with what had happened, and the support that I had at school had fallen through at university. I started failing papers at the university, and again, I wanted knowledge and education, and I was failing myself. Things were not so great at home as well, cos all of us were feeling that. We started to drift apart, I guess, because we were not able to talk to each other. We were dealing with it differently. So if I was the one who would want to talk about things, but Sabah did not want to talk about things. Sehar did not want to talk about things, and that's where we would clash. We've been through so much pain together. We can't be at the same space together. It would completely destroy us. That's how I felt. So we left each other. All four of us left each other. I have no idea what was happening in the other sisters' life at that point, but for me, it was hell. (SOLEMN MUSIC) I was regretting my decision, at one point, to leave my dad, cos I was thinking that this is no life. I wanted independence; I have independence. I wanted freedom; I have freedom. I have knowledge, but I have just failed my university. There came a point where I thought that maybe it was better while we were with him. Whatever shit we were going through, maybe it was better, because that's how bad things were, and then I said to myself, 'No, actually, it's a system.' I thought, 'What can I do so other young people, like me, 'when they are going through the same stuff, that they do not end up at the same place that I am at?' And I think that gave me the drive and anger to go back to university. And I started to reconnect with my older sister, and I realised when we were chatting that she was going through the same hell as I was. And then eventually we did come back with more understanding, and, yeah, now I think we are at a place where... We are at a very good place. I think I trust them more than my life. Give this photo. This one is the best one, actually. Oh, that is so cute. That's, like, the carefree time. (LAUGHS) I think that my dad's in Pakistan. He doesn't want anything to do with us. I know because I've tried, and that's his choice. Part of me thinks that he hasn't forgiven us, but I'm not sure... for what. One day, hopefully he for` he moves on. (LAUGHS) I have, sort of, made peace with it. I don't think about it at all. He's there. He's there. I'm not going to approach him ever. I'm not going to talk to my dad ever again. I still hate him. I think my point is if he did not know how to raise children, he shouldn't have had us, because our life has been hell. I still have very... Yeah, I still feel a lot of hate, and... and the hate is because I loved him as well. I have forgiven him, and I think it's because otherwise I can't move forward with my life. If I don't forgive him, I would always blame him for something, and I think I'm done with blaming people for what has happened. Some people can... take adversity, which is horrible and... ghastly, but they can burnish that and make it beautiful and gold. (GENTLE STRING MUSIC) Their situation was one of the wake-up calls, I guess, for the organisation to be able to better... service young people. Because of what they've gone through, we now have a Shakti Youth Unit that specifically works with young people and intervention. If it weren't for people like them coming out of those situations and being courageous and brave enough to speak openly about their experiences, then we may not have these things that we have now. We have done well, all of us, in our own way. We all have our different views. We all think differently. We have all, sort of, recovered from this in our own way. People around you, they keep telling you, 'Oh, no, you guys are amazing. You guys have done such a good job. 'You could have ended up anywhere.' And when you look at it that way, then you start feeling very proud of yourself. It's been a... hell of a journey. It's been a hell of a journey, but I'm still proud that we did what we did, because life would have been completely different. Right now, my sisters and I are slowly working through what's happened. We are completely different people, but we're still sisters, and, you know, we gel together. I hope that we have a better relationship, because I know it hasn't been easy for any of us. People don't realise how much... To what extent can abuse, or whatever has happened to us, takes so many years to heal, you know. It would take years. I am happy that each of us ` and I speak for all four of us ` are at this stage of our lives that we've come... We've just jumped up. We've come the other side, and we are happy. I am Sehar Moughal, and I am free. Captions by Ella Wheeler. Edited by Glenna Casalme.