From child bride to human rights advocate, Samra Zafar's Canadian journey is 'nothing short of a miracle': 'I owe my life to this country'
Kindness from Canadians has been a key factor to Dr. Samra Zafar's success — as well as her saving grace. But the beginning of her life in this country had nothing of the kind: When she first came to Canada, it was against her will.
In 1996, the 16-year-old Pakistani girl was forced by her parents into marrying a family acquaintance who lived a world away. The explanation she was given for the arranged marriage was simple, but firm. 'It's your destiny,' she recalls.
When she joined her husband in Mississauga, Ont., Zafar discovered his initial promises that she could pursue higher education had been nothing but a ruse. Not only that, but the marriage to a man 11 years her senior quickly became an abusive one. With no support in a country that was alien to her — not to mention a baby on the way — Zafar felt chained to her fate.
Her first taste of Canadian kindness came at a time when she was at rock bottom.
In the early years of her marriage, when she was 21 and her daughter was 2, Zafar was permitted to take her daughter to an early years centre once a week. 'It was my few hours of escape,' she tells me from her home in Toronto. 'Sometimes I would hide under the Credit River Bridge and pull off my hijab so that I could feel the breeze in my hair for a few minutes.' Zafar had to be home at a certain time so she was careful not to linger. One day she was on her way back home walking past a Tim Hortons when her daughter asked for a doughnut.
'I never had money on me but I would find loonies and toonies lying around the house sometimes so I would put them in my pockets or my purse.'
On this particular day, Zafar knew she had a toonie in her pocket because she had put it there the night before. In that moment, Zafar remembers feeling a sense of pride that she could buy something for her daughter on her own. At the store, she ordered the doughnut and reached into her pocket. 'I couldn't find it,' she says. Zafar turned her pockets inside out and her purse upside down. Her daughter was contentedly biting into it. Her hands felt clammy and her face turned red. 'The coin wasn't there. I was mortified and so deeply embarrassed,' she says.
Suddenly a male voice said behind her: 'Let me get that for you, ma'am.'
When she turned around, she saw no judgement in the gentleman's eyes. 'There was just pure humanity,' she says.
Zafar accepted the gesture and pushed her daughter's stroller out of the coffee shop and sat on the bench outside. That's when the tears just flowed. 'I felt my life was so pathetic that I couldn't even do such a small thing for my daughter,' she says. 'I felt so powerless.'
But that experience compelled her to make the most powerful move of her life thus far.
'That same day I ordered the very first course I needed to complete high school via an independent learning centre,' she says. It would take Zafar six years to obtain her diploma. 'The man's kindness that day was the first step to my freedom.'
Everyday kindness became more and more common, encouraging Zafar to take one powerful leap after another. A woman from the early years centre noticed signs of abuse in Zafar even before she could articulate what was happening to her.
'One day, she gave me her phone and a list of numbers to call, saying that I could use the privacy of her office while she looked after my daughter.' The numbers were helplines for women experiencing assault and agencies offering legal aid.
She was also saving money via babysitting other children so that she could attend university. 'When I started university I got the admission very late. But when the woman at the registrar's office heard my story, she bypassed the waitlist and enrolled me in the courses I required.'
There was the professor who wrote her a glowing reference letter so that she could apply for a scholarship to help pay for tuition. 'I had just made the offhand comment to him that a scholarship would help cover the fees,' she says incredulously. 'Reading what he wrote at a time when I was being abused at home and told that I was stupid, it was more than a recommendation — it was a vote of confidence. It made me feel so proud. I needed to see that.'
It was around this time Zafar felt powerful enough to end her marriage.
The kindness kept going. She remembers living in campus housing and having a hard day at her lawyer's office. 'Those days I didn't have childcare so many of the friends I made in university would watch the kids for free,' she says. When she got back, there was a note in her dorm room saying the children were at the student centre. When she got there, what she saw made her stop in her tracks.
'All of these students were playing with my kids. One of my girls was being wheeled around in an office chair. The other was engaged in making a drawing. There was pizza. The whole thing was so beautiful to see.'
Last year, Zafar graduated from the Michael G. DeGroote School of Medicine at McMaster University with a specialty in mental health.
'For a girl who was forced into marriage and told that that was her destiny, to being denied education — Zafar now has three degrees, is a physician and is enrolled in the top residency in the country,' she muses. 'It's nothing short of a miracle,' she says.
If there's one thing she could change about her adopted country, it's the fact that we have not yet outlawed child marriage, she says. 'In Canada, you can marry at age 16 with parental consent. But in many cases, parental consent is actually parental coercion. And even in this day and age, it continues to happen.'
Being in the mental health field has also made her realize there needs to be better access to therapy and supports for everyone, but particularly those from different communities where mental health is maybe more stigmatized, she adds. 'People who have trauma need better access to the tools and supports they need.'
Today, Zafar continues to be amazed at the kindness of Canadians. 'There are people who have nominated me for different roles or who have championed me for different awards,' she says. In addition to her now-grown daughters, Zafar has what she calls her chosen family, 'I have this incredible support system. When I graduated from medical school, it was filled with people who love me.'
Zafar has made it her life's mission to pay that kindness forward. Not only is she a mental health physician and advocate, she's also a women's rights activist, public speaker, and an author. Earlier this year, she released her book, Unconditional: Break Through Your Past Limits to Transform Your Future.
'I owe my life to this country.'
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