Dual Coast Podcast

From Silence to Strength: Laila Eshan's Powerful Movement

• Russell Rogers and Dan Scoca

Share episode

Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.

0:00 | 58:23

In this powerful episode of Dual Coast, Laila Eshan shares the raw truth behind her journey  from surviving an abusive relationship to shedding light on the reality many girls face around the world.

Her memoir, “I Want Freedom,” is more than a story… it’s a movement.

We dive deep into:
– Her personal experience with abuse and finding the strength to leave
– The harsh reality of forced marriages affecting young girls globally
– How she’s using her voice to empower women who feel silenced
– What true freedom really means mentally, physically, and emotionally

This conversation is real, emotional, and necessary.

If this message resonates, share it, because someone out there needs to hear it.

🎙️ Dual Coast Podcast
💬 Like, comment, and subscribe for more real conversations that matter

#IWantFreedom #LailaEshan #WomensEmpowerment #EndForcedMarriage #DomesticAbuseAwareness #SpeakUp #DualCoastPodcast #SurvivorStory #VoiceForTheVoiceless



@Dualcoastpodcast @Movetoday365 @Danscoca

SPEAKER_02

Good afternoon, Dual Coast fans. I'm not used to saying that. Good morning. Good morning. On the West Coast. Good morning on the West Coast.

SPEAKER_03

Good morning.

SPEAKER_02

Bringing it back for round two this afternoon with everybody. Layla Ashon, right, Layla? Layla Ashan.

SPEAKER_03

Yes.

SPEAKER_02

Layla, thank you so much for being with us. We have a very special guest this afternoon. As always, joined by my West Coast co-host, Russ Rogers. Russ, how are we doing over there?

SPEAKER_01

Man, you know, we get to come together twice today. This is fantastic.

SPEAKER_02

We do, we do.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. And we get to have Layla, you know, on Instagram with Du Coast and Live and all of the channels. And we're so grateful and blessed to have you on Dual Coast today, Leila.

SPEAKER_03

Thank you so much, Russell, and Dan, both of you. It's it's a pleasure being here. Thank you so much for having me.

SPEAKER_01

Absolutely. Absolutely. Now, I I I just let Dan know in advance that Layla is not like your hype person. Like we had Kelly Siegel on this morning. Let's go, Leila. Let's go.

SPEAKER_03

Let's see if we could save some life here.

SPEAKER_01

But I said Layla is very kind, she's very gentle, she's very intentional in what she says and her message and what she's doing, but so powerful. And um, you know, so how we met is Layla and I ended up at the same event down with Rudy Mauer down in Miami. And we we connected along with another lady. We sat in each other, we hung out, we we chatted a lot, we sat across from each other at dinner that night. She unloaded on me, and uh she gave me the insight of who Layla and Sean is, or a little part of it. Um, and I just told her, I said, we you know, we gotta get have you on, you know, dual coast. We ended up chatting, I don't know, maybe month a little over a month ago, maybe. We did a little FaceTime and and it was just just a she's just a powerhouse. And we're gonna talk about this because she was getting at that time getting ready to go to the UN and speak, and now that has happened. So I cannot wait to hear live today, but I kind of want to set the tone, Layla, for today, okay? Because what you are doing is powerful, it's meaningful, it's purposeful what you have gone through in your own life, and you know, we're gonna we're gonna open the door for you to share. But I wanna I wrote down some notes off of the web, off of your web, yeah, and I want to share a little bit about this, okay? So I'm gonna kind of set the stage and then we're gonna we're gonna go right into it. And I'm only just pulling out a few things. I mean, there's so much more, okay? First of all, Layla is an author of a book called I Want Freedom. Okay, she was born in Afghanistan, uprooted to Germany at age nine, forced into an arranged marriage at 16, was married for 16 years, moved to the United States having four children. Okay. Then in that marriage, not only was she raped, and it was a violent marriage, but she had to deal with mental torture. By the age of 26, she had already had the four children. She started at that point, she wanted to move away and get out and to have freedom, not only for herself, but for her children, and at age 26, did. Here are some facts.

SPEAKER_03

Um, I was 26 when I became a mother of four children.

SPEAKER_01

Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_03

Uh by the time I got my freedom was when I was 33.

SPEAKER_01

Thank you. Thank you for that correction.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

Now, here are several facts that I want people to know, and we're gonna expound upon that in our conversation today. 650 million women alive today were married as children before the age of 18. Get that six hundred and fifty women, twelve million children become brides every year, which is roughly twenty three girls every minute. Astounding, absolutely astounding. Now, I I'm sure, Layla, you have looked back at your life, you have, you know, you have come a long way. And I'm telling you, the time that we had that you shared with me, not only on the phone, uh just you know, a little over a month ago, and then down in Miami was was absolutely amazing because I I just felt your heart and your passion, you know, for for what you're trying to accomplish in reaching people to not only get on board, get on board with your nonprofit, donate, help in any way that you can, but you have a message that is reaching people for children around the globe who you're trying to keep from what happened to you happened to them. Okay, yeah. Uh it's heavy. I gotta say, it's heavy. And you know what you're doing is astounding, and you're just at the beginning of really doing some incredible things. And so I I just want to I want to open the door to you to share. Let's let's get a little bit of your past history. I shared just some bullet points, but let's get a little glimpse uh and and tell the viewers, listeners out there a little bit about more about the detail of who Layla is.

SPEAKER_03

Yes. Well, um, I was born in Afghanistan, Kabul, and um to parents that I believe till this day they were not quite ready to be parents. Um I was nine years old when the Russian invaded her country, and um my father's career was with the Treasury Department, so knowing that these are the first people would be assassinated in the war, so he was afraid of his life and he wanted to escape the war and move to Germany. Well, father was sort of a party, party daddy. He just loved to go out and he was friends with one of the very famous popular artists and in Afghanistan, a singer, and so that kind of pulled him a lot more towards his friends and partying and whatnot. So he ended up marrying another wife, and um, a year I want to say prior than us moving to Germany before the Russian invaded, and when we moved, my father, my mother refused to follow and come along with us to Germany. The fact that what he did marrying another woman in in our culture, you could you could have as many wives as you want, as long as you can afford them. And so, due to those circumstances, my mother did not feel secure in a relationship. She had never traveled before, um, only went to school till she was ninth grade, and then she got married to my father. So she wasn't really educated to understand what the laws are like going to be in Europe, right? So she was more thinking of what she's experiencing in Afghanistan will probably be the same, which is all about men's rights. There's absolutely zero rights for women. Like it's we can talk about this in a bit later, of what the Taliban has ordered to do recently with women. But having said that, we end up moving to Germany with my father. Mother stayed behind with my younger three siblings. My father ended up taking myself and my older sister that's only 11 months older than me to Germany due to education and having a better opportunity for us and whatnot. So we're excited. Um, but when we moved to Germany, it was a complete different, a different experience altogether, not knowing the language, being far away from your mother at age nine. I then realized that me begging my father to take me with him may have not been a great idea because I really miss my mom so much. And father was never really around in Afghanistan because he was always out either working or with his friends, so we were always with our mom. And I missed that a lot. It was really, really tough time for my sister and I. And um, you know, growing up in a home in Germany with uh another woman that you have to call mom now, and we didn't even know her that well to even call her mom, but we were told that we have to call her mom, and uh, but we didn't feel that kind of affection and that kind of the love from we were receiving from our mom. And so that was tough. But after six years enduring all that type of experience being with a stepmom, and my father was very distanced, and one day I was very driven, I was very, very sort of like had all these goals and dreams that I wanted to be this, I wanted to be that, and I was very smart, um, just more like a go-getter, you know. I was like, I'm gonna do this, I'm gonna do that, I'm gonna just be really successful, I'm gonna go to school and you know, be this and be that, and find my mom a big, nice home, and then have my family come join us. I had all these goals and dreams, and one day I go to school, I was doing finals. Um, I'm on my way home, I'm just thinking of which subject I should study because it's doing finals, as I'm just entertaining that idea. I come home and I find my stepmom cooking during a weekday. She had never cooked during a weekday, and I was like, what's going on? She's like, make some tea. We have some um surprise guests. She wouldn't tell me who they were. So I walk in with a uh a tray of tea, and I the the door from the living room was a bit open. So growing up in Germany, like the rooms are not like here in the US, not everything's wide open. Every every room has its own door. So I walk in and the door was a bit open, so I kicked it with my foot. And the second the door opened, and I just froze like I'm seeing these two men looking at me and smiling, and I was like, oh, my heart just dropped, my whole body froze, and there was just so much emotions going on internally. I I didn't really know how to digest it all. I don't even remember till this day how I greeted these two men. I but I knew they were there to marry me.

SPEAKER_01

Wow, you knew that then?

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, because see, there were rumors for many years when we moved to Germany since I was nine years old, but my father-in-law is so my father-in-law and my my dad's um my dad or brother-in-law's, they married two sisters. So my stepmom was, you know, my father-in-law's sister-in-law. So they worked together and they were best friends. So he always used to come every summer to Germany and call me his little pretty daughter-in-law. And I didn't know what that really meant, but I mean, I know what it meant, but I didn't know exactly what's really gonna happen. So prior to that, my stepmom got in this argument with my dad and said, You choose either your daughter's gonna stay in the house or I'm gonna stay in the house. So my daughter was working at the window, my sister was working, excuse me, at the Wendy's and had just gotten this job, her first job. And she left, took her kids and put in the stroller. And for the first time I saw her pushing the stroller because that was her job. But um, my dad didn't really do anything, and it just did something to me internally that I was just so turned off, so hurt. And I said, Okay, well, dad did stay silent to what she said. Does that mean like we have to move now? So I just jumped out of my window or in a single story home, grabbed my backpack and my sisters, and we ran. We ran away from home. We were gone for 10 days. We went to Bonn to my dad's cousin's house. He was married to an um, she was from Amsterdam, beautiful soul. They tried to adopt us, didn't work out because they needed our guardians or parents to sign us off. Didn't happen, dropped us back off, went to Frankfurt. We went to, we had this case worker. She didn't, we told her everything we were going through, didn't do anything, called dad. She told us there's nothing she could do. We left, so we see our dad walking towards us. That's when dad promised we could do whatever we want to do. We could study no more house chores, no more this, no more that. So we come home two days after that. I walk into the living room, and that's that's when my whole you know journey, my whole life just went upside down. And I went into my room after serving them the tea, and I just started crying. I was helpless, I felt helpless, I felt lost, confused. As a young 16-year-old, very naive. And all I remember just experienced sorrows my whole life, and I just didn't think it was fair. That's like, how am I gonna endorse such a thing? I'm not ready to be married, and soon enough I'm not ready to be a mother. And why is this happening to me? But that's when I made a promise. I said, This is so unfair. I was so angry at my father, and it disappointed my mom, but why would she let me go with my stepmom and my father? You know, she was a mom. Like, why does she not protect me? I would have rather stay in a war in a country than going through this right now. Um, so that anger just created this desire to at some point when I have my freedom, I'm going to share my story with the world and let them know what my parents did to me. So that journey lasted 16 years. I got pregnant, my first child at 17. I didn't know how to protect myself. I remember when I was like five, six years old in Afghanistan, my grandmother used to tell me, honey, um, you're not allowed to touch a boy. And you always have to pray and and just know that a girl should be a girl. And I didn't know what she was talking about that. I think she meant, you know, you have to be a virgin before you get married. But she's like, you can't touch a boy because then you get pregnant. And I the fear of that just kept on going through my head. I mean, we we had some some sort of adultery school studying at school that they would have educated us, but my father denied that he didn't want to sign those, and he said, You guys don't need that. And so I had no idea. I thought by just kissing a boy, you'd get pregnant. So um having said that, I had no idea how to protect myself. I came to a country with within 10 days, I ended up getting married and came to the US, another new phase, another new life, another, you know, and a new of everything that was just very hard for me to accept as a 16-year-old, where I'm finding myself in a country with no one that I know, no one I trust, didn't speak the language, I had no money, car, license, friends, absolutely no one. So I feel pretty um lonely. Very lonely, felt abandoned. I felt like I wasn't important. I feel like uh I'm just I felt, to be honest with you, wordless. And but all those pain I had to just endure internally. I couldn't speak about it to anyone. But I uh within a month later, I found out that they did the same thing to my sister. I was 16, she was 17. My husband was 28, and her husband was 37 when she was only 17 years old when she got married. And for both of us, it was really horrific experience. And I found myself an abusive physical, mental, emotional, and sexual abuse continuously until I got my freedom. At 17, had my first child, my baby girl that saved my life, because prior to that I was very suicidal. Many times I attempted suicide, I swallowed a sewing needle, I took 20 some heart pills, I jumped off the second story, I tried everything to take my life. I was just so miserable, and I didn't think I could endure such life, you know, any further than what I was already experiencing. So um, yeah, that just went on and on. There's a lot of alcohol, a lot of weed back then. To me, weed was drugs, you know, it was heavy-duty drugs. I I my father did drink and whatnot, but I never ever been around drugs, never my entire life. But the smell, the smell was crazy. I could tell the smell was just nasty to me. And his bloodshot eyes, and it's just really scary. When he was angry, he would just turn really angry, a monster man, and he would just do whatever he needed to do, and then I would start crying, and then he'll just pull me out of the room by my ponytail and lock me outside in the hallway because he had to go to bed. The fact that he had to work the next day. So that went on for 16 years, and um my baby girl jazz saved my life, and that's when I was like, okay, now I have a purpose to live. This needs to, this is my life needs to now be different, you know. I gotta live for her. So she came my everything, absolutely my everything. And then all the abuse went on, continued. No matter how much I begged, I cried, didn't really get him anywhere. He broke my jaw when I was a month after, maybe two weeks after we got married, and um someone called the cops, he got arrested. I went, they took me to the hospital, and he came to the hospital with his father. He built he built them out, and his dad did, and I was so fearful. I was like, oh my gosh, now he's he got arrested. What is he gonna do to me? Take me home. And um, he didn't touch me for a bit, but he was very mean. He was always calling names, pushing, shoving, and but never like in a sense of giving me bruises or broken bones. But then after I think he had some anger management issue classes he had to attend for a little bit, but every time he did that, he would come home, just throw things and shove me, push me, and call me names, and just was horrible. I couldn't wait for him to finish those classes so he could just not do this to me anymore. But then right after that, as soon as he got done with those uh lessons, he went back to his old self. And every time he did that, I always told myself, one day, one day I'm going to change the cycle. I know I'm not the only one. The same thing happened to my sister. I knew the culture. And um the entire 16 years I was fighting my freedom every single day. But what really kept me going was training, working out every day, going to the gym. Luckily, there was one thing that he allowed me to do was to go to the gym. He did not mind that at all. And um really that's what kept me sane. And I used to tell myself, this is tomorrow's gonna be a better day. Tomorrow's gonna be a better day. And I always lived my life, although behind the curtains was extremely tough. But people looked at from the outside, they thought I had this perfect, um, perfect life, you know. He was a great provider. I had we lived in a nice home, and externally I look good. I love taking care of myself. I loved fashion, I loved. All the fun things interior designing kept my mind occupied. It gave me a sense of freedom. That was the only couple things that I could do to without asking anyone's permission. Because when I was married to him, I had to ask, can I go to movies? Can I go with my friends out? I wasn't allowed to do anything. So yes, at 33 I got my freedom. I had a friend, I still do it. She's one of my best friends, Nicole. She encouraged me to um, she had just started doing uh real estate. She's like, Lila, this is made for you. You're a people person, and I know you can do it. And I said, Nicole, this last couple of times we bought our homes, I don't even understand the language. How do you expect me to do this? I've never gone to school. It's like I don't even trust my English. Like, how do you expect me to go and learn a different language in real estate? She's like, Lila, trust me, you could learn, you could learn, you could do this. So I did, and um I studied so hard night and day. I was pregnant with my fourth child, and um I told myself that I'm gonna have to do this because one day I'm gonna be able to, I have to support my children, and I want to be able to do so on my own because I knew he wasn't gonna help me financially. That was his threat all the time. And yeah, I got my license, and a few years later I finally said no more. When he started mixing drugs and anything and everything you could come come close to that I wasn't taking, and sometimes there were times where I literally thought I was going to die. I begged him, I said, Stop doing this because our children needs it, needs me. Yeah, you know, you're gonna, you're the provider, you're always gonna be at work, and I don't want my children to be brought up by stepmother or by stranger. Like I love my children like till this day. Um I always raise them in a very particular, very secure way and very clean, loving, um, caring environment. All the things that I never received that I lacked on growing up from my parents, I made sure my children will have and also raise them with knowing that we all have a purpose. I already know my purpose. I know my purpose would be one day that I'm gonna be raising my voice and being the voice for all the voiceless girls that are out there. But I also wanted my children to know that I wanted them to be educated, I wanted them to be financially very successful. I wanted them because, as we all know, when you are financially secure, you have power. When you have power, you can change the world in any shape and form you choose to. So um that's how I raised my children. But when they were old enough, where I felt like they're literally adapting to some of the things their father's doing right in front of them, which was drinking, you know, smoking weed in the backyard, coming back, smelling. It's like I don't want to end up being with five of the same person, and my boys end up being like their father, abusing their mother, their their wives, and then their children would have to experience with my children. It's the same thing for my daughters. And I I that's when I said no more. Just got my freedom and filed for divorce at age 33, took advantage of my real estate license, started door knocking when the rain or shined. And um, whether I had my blisters of bleeding or not, it didn't matter to me. I was determined that I'm gonna be, you know, having better lives financially than we ever provided. And I did, you guys. I did. I became one of the most successful agents in my office and in the community, and then the whole DR department, DRA department. I mean, I used to get always these notifications of like I'm being awarded, like this date. If I didn't even had the time to go collect my awards because I had to work. I mean, I was taking care of my family overseas. By then my mother was uh already here, and but I had my siblings out in Pakistan and um my mother's family, brothers and nieces and nephews that we were supporting. So I took over all that responsibility along with my four children, my mother, and everything else, and did real estate very successfully. Also did um became a real estate investor that I was very successful at. So yeah, and then children are now brought up, and they're all adults. They're my boys are 28, 30, girls are 33, 38, and I'm also blessed with two grandbabies. My oldest daughter's she's got a three-year-old son and a five-year-old son, and um but when I wrote my book was during COVID, that I took the opportunity to now share my story. My children were old, old enough adults that actually were all on their own, and I figured this is the time to share my story with the world, and um there you go. There it is!

SPEAKER_01

Yay, congratulations on that!

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, thank you so much.

SPEAKER_01

That is amazing.

SPEAKER_03

Thank you. So, this book, the story, is dedicated to, like you mentioned, 12 million girls every single year. This 12 million number comes from the United Nations report, but I think if anything, it's a lot more than than what's being reported because a lot of these third world countries that are being practicing this cycle of centuries and centuries of this forced arranged marriage. It happens in in some places in the world where there's really no no news, no television, no cell phones, no newspaper. They're all illiterate. None of these people can read and understand what's going on in the world. All they know is what happened to their themselves, to their mothers, to their grandmas, and they keep on practicing the same thing to their little young girls. Um, because this is what I do, and through social media, as you know how that works. You speak, everything just starts showing up. You search for something, everything's right in front of you. I get a lot of um a lot of um posts that hits my page as well as friends and spirits that know what I'm doing, sending me so many videos, and if things that I see, it's just like I already know what's happening. It happened to me, right? But it's one thing that you know it's happening, another thing that you actually experiencing these videos. Just recently, about four or five days ago, I got this video. There's this room in this village in Afghanistan, very most recent ones. Um, this room, there's two rooms that are filled with young little girls from five years old to 10, 11 years old at the at the oldest. And there's a an American uh journalist that is asking them questions. There's a translator, and they're like, There's a few dads sitting there, the moms are in a different room, and uh all these little young girls covered up with their little heads. And so like, so how old are you, honey? She's like, I'm five, and just smiling, I'm six, I'm five, I'm seven, I'm eight, I mean, just just dozens and dozens of them. They're all waiting to be picked up by their husbands. Every single one of these girls are sold anywhere from 500 to$6,000. And all these men that these young little girls have been sold to are in their 50s, 60s, 70s. They're interviewing a 10-year-old girl, and she's sitting next to her father, and she's crying so hard. I had to cry with her. I mean, it took me back, you know. I was 16, still, I was a bit older. But um, it just took me in my moment that I had to experience that, and she's only 10. She goes, Dad, don't do this to me. If you're gonna do this to me, I promise I'm gonna suicide. You can't do this to me. I want to be with you and mom. I don't want to go to seven-year-old man, I don't want to be married to this man, dad. Please don't do that. And I remember when I was in my room, and that's exactly what I said. I was like, Dad, why are you doing this to me? I'm not ready. And so I was feeling her pain. And that is honestly the reason I can't look away. I just cannot look away. So I'm here and raising my voice and doing whatever I can to make sure that the entire 7 billion population of this world, which I believe 2 billion of these girls are of this population, are these girls, honestly, because and the sad thing is that 33% of these young girls don't make it. I shouldn't even be here myself due to all the attempts I have decided, you know, to suicide and or all the abuse that I have experienced for my husband. I mean, currently I'm I'm experiencing some of the consequences, like I mentioned earlier, swallowing a sewing needle, it's stuck in my stomach. And you know, and now I'm older, right? So it's like, what if I fall and I I need an x-ray, or I mean, an MRI. It's impossible because I was told that I went to many surgeons and um, you know, living in LA, like I went to Cedars, UCLA, and all these places, one of the best surgeons in another city, and they all told me it's like you know, dropping a needle in the sea and asking us to pull it out. It's impossible because it could be fatal to you. You're just gonna have to live with it. And you know, like head concussions constantly, and now I have aneurysm, I have brain aneurysm, I gotta deal with that. So it's like you know, I could be here now and I could not be here tomorrow. Who knows? Like I'm literally walking on eggshells due to my past. But the girls that don't make it, we're talking about 33% of these 12 million girls don't make it. And there's no question asked. There's literally no media about this, there's absolutely nothing. There's a few handful of organizations out there that God bless their heart that are supporting girls in in need and that are stuck in the force-to-range marriages, because 99% of these marriages are in abusive marriages. They're not loving and caring marriages. A lot of these young five-year-old girls don't even make it. I mean, when they through the intercourse, they're done. They're done. The 67-year-old, there's there's they need to they still need to be, you know, develop, they're not there yet, so their bodies can't handle. And and these poor parents don't know. They will never know that their daughters died. They will never know what's going on with their daughters' lives because they take them so far away. There's they don't have any access to anything to be able to get hold of their daughters. And at the end, they all say, Please take care of my child. Um now he's she's yours. Please make sure you give her love and care. They go, Oh, promise, and that's you see these on the videos, but do you really think that's what's happening behind closed?

SPEAKER_01

Not at all.

SPEAKER_03

No, not at all. Five-year-olds, do you think can actually be able to their little tiny bodies tolerate you know, sexual intercourse? Like, what do you think? And it's just sadly there's there's no there's absolutely no news about this at all, anywhere in the world they keep on making it. I I just read about a few months ago, I think it was in uh Saudi Arabia somewhere that they legalized for girls to be married at age nine. Why? How yeah, she hasn't even lived any life. Like, how is that why do you think is that fair? And who are you to tell this young girl who she could be and not be? Like, I was so mad at my father. I'm like, who are you to tell me that I should be sharing my body with this man? Like, why? This is my body, this is my sacred body. Like, why? Who are you to tell me? And at this age, why would you do this to me?

SPEAKER_01

I mean, to think about think about you, Lila, like you were 16, and you just mentioned moments ago a five-year-old, a seven-year-old, an eight-year-old. You know, I I have two granddaughters, age five and seven. Like, could you know, I I can't even fathom them being off and and getting married, you know, and I could see how that would move women to wanting to take their own lives. And one of the things that I read was uh some of them, you know, light themselves on fire. Like that's uh that's so tragic that they're in that state of mind, and there's many other ways, right? And you mentioned some of those, but to to think of a five-year-old, a seven-year-old, you know, to be able to do that, and I love what you said a little while ago, is that physical fitness, getting in the gym, working out, helped you with not only your physical, but right up here, yes, to be able to handle the situation that you were thrown into.

SPEAKER_03

Exactly, exactly. But the sad thing is, um, Russell, that most young girls don't know, and how can they?

SPEAKER_00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03

I recently had a meeting with someone when I was in New York, and this gentleman was um saying, you know what, why would they keep on popping babies when when they know they can't afford it? Like, for example, parents selling their children, and this this one video I shared with you folks was that um there's a father holding his six-month-old little girl. He says, I have to sell my five-year-old girl to feed the six-month-old. And then four and a half years later, he's going to sell that five-year-old so he could feed the new child. There is no protection for them, they don't know how. It's not, there's no medical. I have a cousin in Afghanistan that he was a taxi driver, 44 years old, father of five children, just passed from a heart attack. He didn't know he had heart issues. 44 years old, father of four. He had a taxi driving somebody else's some company's taxi. They took his car away. He was so stressed out. How is he going to now provide for his children? And end up giving him a heart attack and died. So, and and my cousin lived in Kabul, which you think it's the capital and it's a city, you know. But I'm talking about these some of these people that are living in these small villages, and it's not just in Afghanistan. I'm talking this happens globally, you guys. It happens all over the world, including here in the US. It happened to me in the US. I mean, constantly banging my head. It's like I shouldn't even be here. Like, and my sister shouldn't even be here, the things she had experienced. And you know, girls lose their lives, and there's there's no talks about it. And under their husband's abuse, or they put themselves on fire. You know why on fire? Because there's no pills to take. I took 25 pills, heart pills to kill myself. I didn't die. But there's no pills for them to take to kill themselves with, you know, probably not even a sharp knife to cut their wrists, or so what they do is put themselves on fire. The most easiest, the most access, you know, that they have to take their lives away. So this is this is why this is so close to me. I live this life. I live the silence, you know, the loss that comes from forced arranged marriage. But I lived in this country and in a free country, the most free country in the world, and I was still stuck. I was still stuck for 16 years. I didn't know how to get out. And I got pregnant four times, and I didn't know the first time, the second, third, fourth, every time I fought for divorce, I because I was into health and fitness, I knew that birth control pills will cause me some sort of health issues later in life. I just knew it. Every time I took it, I was like, this is poison. I'm giving my body poison. And um and I hated it. So every time I fought for divorce, I stopped the pills. Then he'll come back and beg and cry, beg and cry, give him another chance, another opportunity. So I would I would do that. And me being so young and healthy and active, very fertile, I'll get pregnant, I'll get pregnant. And so he took advantage of that. And he told me once, he goes, you know, I wanted to have four kids with you, and I got that because I know now he can't go anywhere, because he didn't think that I'm actually gonna be able to work and provide for myself because I had no education, I was robbed from all that. But you know, being that little aggressive, driven, you know, ambitious young girl, I carry that on with me throughout my my adult life, and that's what got me to where I am today. But not all girls have that, yeah. They just don't even know how to reach within themselves to pull that bravery out. So they're just stuck, they're just stuck in these you know, abusive marriages that they don't know how to pull themselves out. So, what I want to do is when I was writing my book, I realized that okay, Lila, you're sharing your story with the world, bringing awareness, creating a movement. Great. But what I this book could be out, but I, you know, what can I do to help? So when I decided to launch my nonprofit organization, which is I want freedom.ngo, um, to the nonprofit to be able to through funds that I can, you know, build a safe home, provide education, provide all the tools that they need and the support that they need so they become independents and maybe one day write their own story. Who knows? But that really what this story is meant to do, my story, is to be able to save lives and and provide what I didn't have, what I was lacking on for these young girls, and to get them educated, you know, and and give them the mental and support that they need. So yeah, instead of the world is going into war and one war to another war, and it's like, why are we doing all of this? Why can we just not have a peaceful life and just help one another and raise you know, raise somebody else's hand to give what they need, and we're privileged, right? Yeah, as long as we have a roof over ahead, a plate of food, and on the table, I think really that's that's more than enough for me, and I just want to be able not to help, but I can't do this on my own. It's obvious, it's impossible. I really need everyone's help, everybody, including the women that are stuck in this situation. That's what I'm finding from my experience that due to their pride, dignity, family name, they just keeping their stories a secret. They don't want to talk about it, they don't want to share their story with me. Like, allow me to share your story so we can, you know, bring in further awareness that this is just not my story. There's this is millions and millions of all of our stories. Let's just share it.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. Dan, I want to hear what's going on in your mind right now.

SPEAKER_02

Uh, that is uh very heavy story, Lila, I have to be honest with you. Um, Russ gave me a little bit about your background before we came on, but I didn't realize uh the depths of you know what actually happened. I just want to touch on your nonprofit for a second here. How can people who are listening to the podcast right now? Help to assist your nonprofit in I Want Freedom. What can they do?

SPEAKER_03

Well, what they could do, whatever they think, in any way that they can think they can help, we're open. Um, I'm in the process of creating a team, whether it's here in the US or outside of the US, anywhere in the world, uh, forced marriage is happening globally. It's not just in my country, it's not just in the Middle East, it happens everywhere. So you or listeners or listening right now, if you think you can help in any way, please reach out to us. Whether it's through funding or becoming part of her team, you can get hold of us through iwantfadom.ngo or iwf.ngo. That is um also our website and the nonprofit charities on there, um, social media, everything, all the contact information is on there that folks can get hold of us and let us know. We would really appreciate it if nothing else. Please, please share. At least share, bring in more awareness, and you know, we need to unite to save lives of five-year-olds, six, seven-year-olds. I mean, we all have daughters or grandbabies that we would never want that. We can't even like you said, think about this happening to our children, and that's what I want your viewers and listeners to put themselves and in these little young girls' shoes or their daughter's shoes, you know. If you think you can't see that on your children, and please help us.

SPEAKER_01

Yes, yes, yes. You know, my thought, Lila, is that you know, you know, I don't know how many there are of you. Uh, and what I what I mean by that statement is there are so many millions who have not come through the situation, have not come through, and I'm saying that are alive, they didn't take their own lives, but who are living today, still living underneath those circumstances, or maybe got free from that, but still feeling confused and distraught, and feeling like who's gonna be around the corner next to to come get me, or not being able to genuinely love someone, right? Or in your case, be able to get to the mindset and the healing process to be able to share your words. There's so many out there, millions, who have not made it through, who are struggling today.

SPEAKER_03

Yes, 100%, Russell. That's the whole point. Is um my, for example, my own sister. I talked about her in my book.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03

Sophie, she um, although she got her freedom, and you know, her ex just recently passed away from cancer. The family found him dead. He was dead for three days, bleeding from nose, mouth, ears, everywhere. I mean, just that, I'm like, okay, that was God's punishing him in his times, you know, for what he did to that young little Sophie. But I tell her, I'm like, can I please like let me share your story? Doesn't want to. And that's that's that's literally been a challenge for me. Like you said, the ones that are stuck out of fear, they can't speak, and the ones that got end up getting their freedom out of shame, embarrassment, family's name, you know, for all these reasons. They don't want to, they don't want to share their story. Um, you know, when I wrote my book, I knew that I have a relationship, or I had at least a relationship with my father, and um over the phone, and you know, maybe every few years I'll go visit them because they live in a different country. But um when he found out about my book two years ago when it came out, I called his brother passed away, and I just wanted to call and give him my condolences, and he said, There's no reason for us to talk anymore without even giving me reason. And I didn't talk really about my own personal experience and details, the life I had in Germany, or maybe even at home in Afghanistan, because I didn't want it to lose the message of my book. This is about forced arranged marriage, not my personal life relationship with my family. But um, so there's a lot I didn't share. But having said that, my father doesn't even know what I wrote in my book. This isn't about my our personal story, so he's assuming. And um I I uh a little part of me wanted to hear him that he was proud of me and that he wants to read my book because I have forgiven him. I talked about it, and you you have you read my book, right? And I and I said it over and over, it's not their fault. I don't blame them. This is a culture, this is a tradition that's been practiced centuries after centuries. So I want to break this cycle. I want to educate those parents, I want to educate these young girls and these young boys that this is not a way to do it. You have your whole life to get married, you have your whole life to have children. And through my nonprofit, I want to be able to support these families that are being forced to give away and to sell their children for financial burdens, right? That's they're not doing it because they don't want their children, they're doing it because the places they live, the the areas they're they're at, there's no food, there's no jobs, there's nothing for them. So what they do instead, sell the sell the little girls. So if we can provide them and support them where the countries they live in, you can support a family for$100 a month, and that's saving a lot, you know,$100 a month to support a family in some village, to give a a what do you call it, a laptop to this young little girl and educate her, right? And in one laptop, you could educate five, six girls. I mean, that's just how it works. They're all together all the time. And from there, you spend five, six years. What is that times hundred dollars? It's nothing for a young girl or six of these girls to become educated so then they can carry on and support their community and be a better role model for their children. This is how we could change a society, this is just how we could have a better world for the future generation. If we continue doing this, what do you think the outcome will be? You know, so that's really where my head is at. And yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02

One thing I have to say is I can't believe there's not much media coverage on this. Well known by any means, at least in my opinion. Um, Russ, I don't know, do you do you agree with that? Oh, yeah, 100%. And it's 100%, it's just unbelievable to me how this happens. And Lila, you're saying this happens a lot of places, not just you know, this happens in a lot of different countries, not just Afghanistan. Yeah, true. This is happening everywhere.

SPEAKER_03

Absolutely. This happens anywhere. Just just recently, about maybe a month ago, I read an article that happened in Alabama. A 64-year-old Caucasian man married a 16-year-old young Caucasian girl, and someone, some neighbor told on him, and he got arrested. He didn't know why he got arrested, and they're like, You married a minor. He goes, Well, I have the parents' consent.

SPEAKER_02

That's crazy.

SPEAKER_03

That's just so this happened in the US. Yeah, you know, so it happens everywhere, but at least this young 16-year-old girl was lucky enough to have a neighbor telling her husband that saved her life. Yeah, I know I was 16 years old, I didn't know nothing. I didn't know nothing about being a wife and being a housewife and having all these chores and being a mother. I didn't know. I didn't even know that the most healthiest thing to do as a mother is to breastfed your child. I didn't know that. And I used to pump my milk. My mother-in-law said, Well, pump it because I was in so much pain. And and she said, just pump it and give it to your child. And I pumped it out, and I saw like the milk was just mixed with, you know, it just mixed with oil and discolored. And I was like, Ew, this doesn't look like a normal, regular milk. I'm not gonna drink this. In Germany, the doctors told us every time we took our young siblings to the doctor's, that was our chores, and they always said, if if you're cold, your siblings are cold. If you're hot, so anything that you've desire, you feel that's how children. So to me, I remember that, and I was like, doctors in Germany used to tell me this about my siblings. So if the doctor would tell me, if you you know, don't I wouldn't drink this milk, so why do I want to give it to my child? That's how uneducated I was. I didn't I went to school in Germany, I was under US, I didn't know. So imagine what these little young girls they don't know. They don't know. So they need to be educated. The parents need to be educated, they need to be supported. And like I said, I mean, for us here in the US, I was in Miami and I I enjoyed one of these talks, and this girl's like the host, is like, you know, you guys buy my program, you know, like it's gonna be this much. And how much do you spend going out on on dinners? She's like, I spend minimum a thousand dollars a week, you know. I was like, wow, she spends a thousand dollars a week to go out to dinner if she could only spend one hundred dollars of that thousand dollars, that's right, yeah, you know, and and support a family that can support five young girls. The sad thing is that like you said, Dan, there's not enough media. We talked about it, and people don't know. When I was in the UN and did my speech, most people are like, oh my god, I didn't know this was happening. I didn't know, I didn't know this was happening. And I'm like, wow, they go, Oh, is this still happening? This is actually still happening, not wasn't just in your time, but it's still happening. Yes, it's still happening right now.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Blind to it, blind to it, and not enough, not enough people, you know, talking about it like yourself, you know, writing about any book, starting a nonprofit, going to the UN and you know, getting on stages, getting on podcasts, and just sharing your story, your message, you know, um, and that's what we need more of. Exactly. So, you know, I hope that those that are listening today live or those that are going to hear on the different platforms, social media, hearing and seeing the different videos of this cut, um, take action. Please, you know, because um the story that Lila has shared of her past and her present. And I know she in Miami, when we were sitting there at the dinner table, speaking so highly, you know, of her children uh and the relationship and and her grandbabies, you know, and so you know, that brought you know a smile to my face. And of course, we we didn't go quite this in depth in our conversation, but um, but but she definitely shared uh an extensive amount of her story with me. And I I was just so blessed to to get to know you and to hear your story uh about the pain and about the suffering, about all of the trauma that you went through, but the healing that has happened and now the light that you're sharing and and and shedding light uh on the situation that's abroad uh everywhere.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, shedding the light is the main purpose here. Yeah, and absolutely. So thank you so much, you guys.

SPEAKER_02

Absolutely. Thank you so much for coming on today. Layla, where can people find you and where can people find your organization?

SPEAKER_03

My organization is uh I want freedom.ngo and um website, everything is all under the same name. So if they click in and they can find the book on um Amazon, Barnes and Noble. There's also an audiobook as well that I decided to narrow edit it myself. So it's all available on Amazon, and all the information is on the book as well as um in the iwf.ngo or iwantfreedom.ngo.

SPEAKER_02

Okay. Excellent, excellent. This place, everybody, go ahead. Everybody get that book, look into Layla's nonprofit organization. We we ask you. Thank you so much for being on today. This was a very powerful podcast. Uh, we really appreciate your time, and we really appreciate you being able to spread awareness on this. And uh, you know, you've educated me a lot today, you educated Russell a lot today, it seems 100%. Um, and thank you so much again for telling your story. We really appreciate it.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, thank you so much for having me. It was just such a blessing, and it was a pleasure meeting you, Russell, and continuing our friendship. I admire and Dan, you as well. Now that I met you, thank you so much for having me. This means the world. Thank you.

SPEAKER_02

Anytime, absolutely. God bless. Thank you, everybody, for listening. Please look into Layla's, look into our story. Thank you so much again for listening. We'll see everybody next week.

SPEAKER_03

Yes, goodbye. Thank you.