Sonita Alizadeh was born and grew up in Afghanistan until she was eight when the family fled to Iran because of war. Sonita remembers her childhood of hunger, aerial bombardment and Taliban fighters. In Iran, she couldn't get a formal education because of not having proper identification. She had to clean bathrooms and learnt the basics of how to read and write herself.

Sonita watched music videos on TV to kill her free time and learnt the styles of Iranian rapper Yas and US rapper Eminem. She started to write songs about her life as a refugee, child worker and especially a female. Other songs are about her girl friends with broken spirits after arguing and begging their parents not to sell them. Her songs have empowered her friends to protest against forced marriages which account for 60-80 per cent of Afghan marriages.

Things were all right until they weren't. Sonita's mother asked her to come back to Afghanistan as she needed 7,000 dowry to prepare for Sonita's brother's wedding. Her mother thought she could sell Sonita for a man with 9,000 dowry. Devastated by her mother's wish, Sonita fought by making a music video "Daughters for Sale" with the help of an Iranian filmmaker. Thanks to the video, the Strongheart Group contacted her and gave her a scholarship in the US where she now can go to school and remain single.