'Her Feeble Horror'
‘Her Feeble Horror’
By Nahal Sheikh
On ‘Her Feeble Horror’
Child marriage is a traditional practice in Pakistan facing legal challenges within the local social milieu. It's a common understanding, especially in underdeveloped and rural areas, that once a girl reaches puberty she's ready for marriage, sex, and child bearing.
The Urdu text in the illustrations reads: "Underage and forced marriages are punishable by law." In 2019, the Pakistan Senate passed 'The Child Marriage Restraint (Amendment) Bill, 2018' to set the minimum age of marriage for females to 18. As there was an uproar by religious political groups against this, there is still much to be debated, approved and finalised.
The illustration follows a vintage horror comic style, and uses the metaphor of a 'monster' to represent how alienating, helpless, lonely and frightening of an experience it can be for a young girl to be forced into marriage with a man much older than her; and to enter a house she's not familiar with, into a family she doesn't know.
About the illustrator
Nahal Sheikh is a journalist who experiments with digital collages. She covers stories at the intersections of gender, culture, and social change that usually resonate with South Asian narratives. Her illustrations try and portray the ambiguous nature of social issues which sometimes only imagery can capture. She's from Lahore and based in Amsterdam.