With a poet’s soul and an activist’s passion, Sonita Alizadeh uses her rap lyrics and powerful voice to address child marriage. Sonita was born in Afghanistan but grew up a refugee in Iran where she faced forced marriage while still a child. In an effort to express her pain and share the experience of friends also being forced into marriage, she wrote “Daughters for Sale” and created a homemade music video. The song caught the world’s attention and has been viewed over half a million times.
Through the Strongheart Group, Sonita came to the United States where she is now a student at Wasatch Academy and international spokesperson for the rights of girls to choose their own destiny. Sonita was named one of Foreign Policy Magazine’s Global Thinkers of 2015, one of BBC’s 100 Women of 2015, and has been featured by CNN, NPR, BBC, Buzzfeed News, and over 200 publications in 20 countries.
Read more: