Farida Khalaf: The Girl Who Escaped ISIS

A performance I wrote, directed and produced for an all female audience at a girls school in North Wales. The story followed a 16 year old girl who was captured, tortured, raped and then escaped from ISIS. It was inspired by the book “Farida Khalaf: The Girl Who Beat ISIS” by Andrea C. Hoffman - a true story about an inspiring young woman who was captured, raped and tortured by ISIS and then bravely lead an escape for herself and five other girls. My inspiration for creating a piece of theatre like this came when I was watching the documentary “Stacey Dooley Investigates: Sex in Strange Places” featuring sex slaves to ISIS soldiers who escaped to Turkey. During the programme Stacey Dooley made a comment about how when we see the news reports on the TV we think “aw that’s sad” but soon enough they just become facts and statistics. This comment from Stacey had a huge impact on me and inspired me to make a piece of theatre that would make the audience have to think about the detrimental emotional effect these women are experiencing everyday. I had always gone on about how theatre is underused as a political and educational tool, especially where I’m from in North Wales, so now it was time to practice what I preached. The play was performed at my all-girls school and sixth form. I wanted to educate the young girls at my school about what women who were the exact same age as them have to go through in this society at this time. The audience I had were young, sheltered and privileged - I wanted to give them a reality check to what was happening. The performance was shown to girls 16 years old and older, the whole cast were their peers and there was immersive elements for the audience. Some said that what I did was too intense, and I’m sure some parents weren’t happy about it, but what I did was open the girls eyes and hopefully made them really think about the awful things going on today and possibly even how they can make a difference. One of the biggest theatrical decisions I made throughout the process was choosing to change the ending on the week of the performance. During one of our last rehearsals I sat back and watched with ‘fresh eyes’ (as best as any director can) and I realised at the end of the piece the audience would be focusing on the happiness and relief that Farida escaped, when the aim of my piece was to leave a resonating message about the cruciality and significance of the situation. So instead of having a scene between the actors of Farida returning home, I had a projection explaining that she safely returned back to her home village and then moved to Germany to become a teacher, “but other’s aren’t as lucky”. The feedback I got on this last scene was that it meant everything the audience had just learnt resonated, and won’t leave them as soon as the play was over the lights switched on - which was exactly what I wanted. Of course looking back now - 3 years on I would love to recreate it and make it better, but I’m still so proud of this piece and the effect it had on the girls. If you’d like to view a recording of the piece please don’t hesitate to contact me and I can send it via email.