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A
This is about being a voice for over 12 million girls that are losing their freedom, their choices every single year. 33% of these young girls that are being forced into child arranged marriages end up losing their lives. For me, this is actually an autobiography. I share my story with the world of what happens when you are into as a child. This is for me, in my case, I was 16 years old. Of what happens to you when you are being forced into arranged marriage afterwards. There are some talks about it, oh, she's been in or experienced arranged marriage, but they don't really know behind the scene, what's happening.
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B
Layla Ishan is a resilient, fearless and inspiring humanitarian, author and the founder of I want freedom charity.
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She now empowers girls worldwide through education,
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advocacy, and her powerful story of overcoming adversity.
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A
My ultimate goal was to allow this to be a movement and not just to be an awareness. I want the whole world to know is that what happens to us young girls when we get into forced arranged marriage? And so this is why I'm here and this is why I would like to awaken the world and let everyone know is that
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it spans the globe like a super high cold Internet Elvis. Ready for free. Today, Apple is going to reinvent the phone. It's not over until I win the living your legacy podcast.
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For those who live to leave a legacy that's extraordinary.
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B
The impossible has been.
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A
Oh, that is sensational.
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B
Jordan, open Chicago with believe you said
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A
Paul is the fastest man on the planet.
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B
You can live your dream. Hello and welcome back to another episode. I'm sat here today with Lila and we're going to dive into her mission, her impact that she's having, her vision for her brand and how she's helping shape change the world in a positive way. And she's on a big one, let me tell you. Lila, welcome to the show.
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A
Thank you so much.
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B
So let's start with, you know, this, this big mission of yours, right? A lot of people get to sit here and I get to hear their missions. Right. Some people are changing the world, some people changing their communities. But, you know, you're doing something really impactful. So I'd love for you just to explain to everyone listening what, what you do.
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A
Well, what I do is that I have written Miami Moore in this book and this is about being a voice for over 12 million girls that are losing their freedom, their choices every single year.
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B
Wow.
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A
33% of these young girls that are being forced into child arranged marriages end up losing their lives under suicide or under the persons that they were forced to marry. And unfortunately there's not enough organizations that supports this cause. And also there isn't really much of media that talks about how many lives are involved in this matter.
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B
Yeah, I didn't realize it was so many every year.
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A
Huge. And what I just shared with you, this is according the UN records that reports that this is what's happening.
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B
It's probably underreported like most of these 10%.
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A
And that's exactly what I believe. That's what it is only because this happens not just in the Middle east, it actually happens globally, including United States. And for me this is actually an autobiography and I share my story with the world of what happens when you are into as a child this is for me in my case I was 16 years old of what happens to you when you are being forced into arranged marriage afterwards there's some talks about it, oh she's been in or experienced arranged marriage but they don't really know behind the scene what's happening. And I share this book is very well and I share about 75% of what I have experienced in my forced arranged marriage that lasted 16 years where I felt myself stuck and I couldn't get out of it for many reasons. One, because my education was stolen from me, my hopes and my dreams, my goals that as a very young 16 year old and a very driven one was taken away from me. And for those reasons I didn't really have the security to be independent and to say enough is enough. So I was trapped. I had my first child at age 17 and by the time I became 26 years old I was mother of four children. And I filed for divorce after my fourth attempt that with God's grace I was able to get my freedom. And at age 33 I had a 4 year old, 6 year old, 8 year old and a 13 year old with no education, no degree where I was able to through real estate, get myself out of it and become independent. And became one of the most successful agents in my community. In my office out of 87 agents was being awarded left and right almost every year throughout my real estate career. I was determined that I'm going to be doing whatever it takes to not only be successful but make it to show my ex husband that I can do anything I want. And the only reason I was trapped and I couldn't is because of you. But on top of that, my ultimate goal was to allow this to be a movement and not just to be in awareness. I want the whole world to know as to what happens to us young girls when we get into forced arranged marriage? And so this is why I'm here, and this is why I would like to awaken the world and let everyone know, is that to please, please stand up for the girls rights. We're not talking about one or two. We're talking about over 12 million girls. Like you said, it's even underestimated. So.
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B
And I think that's, you know, I know it's gonna. It's very hard to summarize it, but if someone's listening, they're not really kind of fully aware of how arranged marriages work and come about. You know, they may have seen it in a movie or heard about it, but can you actually explain kind of the mechanics of it in a couple of minutes for someone that's not sure how. How it works?
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A
Yeah, so the way it works is generally, it's tradition, it's a culture. And this runs, like I said, globally. It doesn't necessarily mean it happens in Christianity or, you know, tradition or Muslim or anything like that. It's just overall, this is just their nature. This is all they know. Our great grandmothers experience that. Our grandmothers, our mothers. And when it. When a child, a young girl goes maybe, perhaps have the courage to share their story and experience with their parents. And they say, especially particularly their mother, what you always hear is, honey, it's okay. Have a child, he'll change. It's okay, honey, I endured it and look where I am today. Your father is sorry, you know, but now she's 50, 60 years old. Why is that okay? Why do you think that's okay for me to be abused in this arranged marriage? Why? And also they believe that this is just how it works. When you're a daughter, you don't have a lot of the privileges saying the boys gets, meaning having a voice, meaning be able to go to school, meaning to be educated and to be independent. There's really, really not enough trust in girls. And. But that's only because they don't have the opportunity to be able to get themselves educated. Parents do control, and in my case, just to give an example, and this is very common, is that I was six months old and my parents engaged me with a cousin that was five years old, and I started having proposals at age 12, 13 years old. By the time I was 16, I had five proposals. And. And my uncle used to always say they would come in because he was the elder and the family well respected. So they would come in and ask him for my hand, and he'll say she's already engaged, she's already promised. So this is a global cause that's happening and it's all because majority of population in the world are illiterate. They don't know any better and they think that this is a girl's duty, is that when you're a girl you're just going to have to get married. And on top of that and most of the countries, particularly third world countries, it's difficult for them to survive. And in countries that there's no jobs and when you have a daughter and they can't really support you, what they do is they end up selling you for $500 or $2,000 at age 5. I just got sent a video, you know Larry Namar, the founder of E. Him and I are good, great friends and he's been sending me emails because he knows what I'm doing. And I was like, Larry, I'm so glad that you're just, you know, finding these things out and sending me all these videos. But it was just heartbreaking to know that there are half a dozen girls playing in the dirt on the street from five years to 11 have just been sold for $2,000 each. And you see there are husbands, 40s, 50s, 60s, 70s are walking towards them, trying to grab them and it just breaks me, my heart. It just heartbreaks.
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B
Yeah, yeah. And it's, you know, it's. I was going to ask for people listening, maybe uneducated on the subject. Is it happening in certain countries, certain religions, is it all around?
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A
It's, it's globally. I mean if you do your research. I just read an article that is in Alabama, it just happened. A 64 year old Caucasian man marries a 16 year old with the parents consent, I'm talking about Caucasians. And he gets arrested. Somebody tells on him and this old man is like why am I being arrested? He's questioning why, like you are with this 16 year old. And he goes, so what? I married her with parents consent. What does that mean? A 16 year old girl, how would she know that this is what she wants and if the parents particularly give their consent. So we need to ask the questions why? Why are we doing this? What do we need to do to change and what needs to be done? Anything overall really has a huge impact on education. Parents need to be educated. The whole world needs to be awoken and bring in this awareness that this is wrong. We need to educate the young children to speak up, particularly girls, to fight for your own freedom and if you have to do what you have to do.
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B
Yeah. I mean, I think in the. At least I've seen In the last five, 10 years, there's been a massive rise in education and people speaking out in sex trafficking. And I think that's come a long way in the last five, 10 years. But not in this area. Right. It's kind of took a shadow almost. I don't see much and I don't know if it's because it's more prominent in certain countries, religions or why, but you know, the. The world and society is, you know, still got a long way to go. But fortunately it has come a long way in equal rights in the last 50 years for women and a racial aspect too. Right. And equality there. But there's still, you know, as you're highlighting here, there's some gaps and there's some big areas still where, you know, female rights are just, you know, so under the. Not under the spotlight. Right, Exactly. I think it's so great what you're doing to bring it to the spotlight. And we've had certain people sat here on the sex trafficking side. Right. And trying to educate them, bring that to the world. And it's great to see. Now a lot of celebrities are starting to run charities and organizations highlighting it too, and even sharing some of their stories. So I hope, you know, this follows in its. In that. In that.
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A
Yeah. And this is exactly what it is. It's sextiles trafficking. It's exactly what it is. Except that just.
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B
Yeah. Just one degree over.
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A
One degree over. And they just make it official by marrying their little young girls and without having any guilt over it. But this is really identical, very similar. Exactly what it is. So, yeah, I do also have. While I was writing my book during COVID I wanted to bring an awareness. I wanted this to be a movement. But I also realized is that what that I needed when I was in that situation. I needed help, I needed escape, I needed to be in a safe home. It was very hard because I had to endure on a daily basis all kinds of abuse from mental, emotional, physical, sexual abuse. And I didn't hide anyone to turn around and say, hey, can you help me?
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B
Well, I was going to ask, are the organizations and help lines for this that people can get help with?
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A
Yes. Well, I personally myself decided to, not only for my story to bring in awareness and to be a movement, but also I launched a nonprofit to be able to help girls globally that if they are stuck in this similar situation, that we would love to offer them safe home support and education. So then One day they can write their own story. But that's, that's what I'm working towards.
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B
Yes. It's hard to get hard.
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A
Yeah.
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B
Especially on a global level. Right. You know, so it's great that you, you're starting that journey.
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A
Yes. This is definitely the beginning, but it's not going to be the end. And I'm also working very hard trying to bring in this story and on a screen to allow the world to see the reality of what girls are facing every single day.
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B
Yeah, I think bringing it, you know, more mainstream. Right. Like sex trafficking has had several movies starting to come out now that have, I think, helped educate the world, you know, the general population more about how big the issue is. Because I do think for many years it was kind of in the shadows and hidden away.
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A
Yes.
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Right. And I, I believe this is the same and it sounds like this is very similar.
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A
Yes, absolutely agree with you.
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B
So, last couple of questions for you. Yes, I would love to hear, you know, writing the book. Right. Going through that process, you know, being a mom, balancing the businesses. People are listening and, you know, they've obviously sad for hearing what you went through, but also probably inspired about how, you know, everything's now turned out. Right. What tips and things have you learned to be able to juggle all these things and kind of, you know, have the business career that you've had as well.
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A
What helped me the most was staying on top of my health and fitness that honestly kept me going to stay positive and also my children knowing that where I was at in life and where I wanted to be was absolutely no question asked. Because I know that you need to just stay positive and never feel like you're the victim. Always wake up and know that or believe that today is going to be a better day and tomorrow is going to be even a better day for you. And if you have that mindset and work towards freedom with one small steps and one decision at a time, and you will get to be able to reach your goal as long as you follow those things and not get drowned in a dark hole and feel bad for yourself and feel like you're stuck, that is not the option. You just have to. There's really no one else when you're stuck in a situation like that to help you but yourself. So health and fitness is the number one positivity, consistency in staying positive. And real estate for me, saved my life and I knew that I wanted to be successful and, you know, to be on my own feet. So just do what you need to do. To accomplish whatever you have, you know, and as a mindset. Good.
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B
And last couple of questions. You know, I think for stuff like this, there's two parts of it, right? There's people that maybe know someone going through this, but they haven't actually realized how. How if someone, you know, might think there's a friend or someone they know that's actually stuck in this and is going through it, are the signs and things people can spot to maybe help someone if they know someone going through
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A
this, you know, it's unfortunately from my own experiences that right now I'm trying to gather stories of women to bring it in more globally to share with the world. Including my own sisters and some of the friends that I've known experienced the same situation. They are fearful to share their story. I don't know if it's out of shame or out of maybe even family's name.
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B
Yeah, yeah.
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A
But it's. And when they do have bruises like myself or some sort of an injury, we hide, we stay home. We don't like to be seen in that kind of a situation. I mean, I remember when I had my first bad experience or that I had was at age 16 when we first got married. I had a broken jaw. I broke my jaw and I couldn't even look at myself in the mirror because I was very looking disfigured. But I didn't leave the house for eight weeks. I don't want it to be seen that way. I don't want people to feel bad for me. And so, yeah, I really hope that women are becoming more brave enough to come out and out of the darkness and speak up. Please speak up. Because if we. We all gather our voices together, we can make a difference in this world. If you may think it's too late for you, but what about our daughters? What about our granddaughters? The future generation? We all want. We all have a purpose and we all want to leave this world to be a better place for our future, for children. So please speak up. And if you are stuck, please get hold of us. And I wantfreedom ngo, reach out, share your story with us. We can help you.
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B
Good. And I was about to ask ways to follow you. Engage. Get the book. You already shared one, right? But can you just repeat the book back and maybe any social media and other places?
- [20:36]
A
Yes, the book is available on Amazon, Barnes and Noble. It's called I Want Freedom by Lila Ishan. And our social media is Lila for girls, freedom and 100. The profit of the book will go towards this cause. That we'll be providing in supporting girls would help and education and support. Yeah.
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B
Good. Well Lila, thanks so much for sharing the story. I so much. You know I think between the book and an episode and hopefully one day soon a movie it can have the same effect that you know some of those other movies in sex trafficking, Sound of Freedom and stuff have had educating the general public. Right. And I hope you know just like with sex trafficking more awareness charities, celebrities and people start speaking out.
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A
Yes.
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B
Have a change, you know and it's there's a long way to go right in both arenas. But you know I think awareness is the first step right. Just like in business. Thanks for sharing. Everyone listening. You know, go support this obviously great cause and as always keep working hard. Have impact, have legacy and I'll see you guys soon. Take care.
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A
Thank you.