In 2019, Rahaf Mohammed snuck out of a Kuwaiti hotel room in the middle of the night and headed to the airport to catch a plane to Bangkok. She was 18 and running away from her abusive family and oppressive life in Ha’il, Saudi Arabia.

She had planned to continue travelling from Thailand to Australia, where she intended to claim asylum, but was intercepted at the Bangkok airport by a man who claimed he needed her passport to help with her visa application. What she didn’t know was that her family had alerted authorities in Saudi Arabia of her departure, and the man was actually a Saudi embassy official.

Desperate to escape, Mohammed began tweeting about her ordeal from the hotel room where Thai authorities had detained her. The story made headlines around the world. Mohammed spent days in that hotel room, refusing to let authorities in. She did not want to be put back on a plane to Saudi Arabia where she believed her family would have her killed for leaving. While she waited for Australia to grant her asylum – part of the plan she had developed over three years with the help of an online support network – she was granted a visa to travel to Canada.

Mohammed has lived in Canada since then, and this month published her memoir, Rebel: My Escape from Saudi Arabia to Freedom (HarperCollins Canada), written with journalist Sally Armstrong. Mohammed dedicates the book to all women fighting for their freedom. Rebel paints a searing portrait of Mohammed’s childhood, outlining how everything changed for her when she turned seven and was no longer afforded any of the freedoms her brothers took for granted because of the oppressive interpretation of Islam followed by her family. She writes of suffering abuse, and of her eventual struggle to break free. Q&Q spoke with Mohammed about the experience of writing the book and what she hopes readers will take from the account of her life.

There are so many painful details of your experience growing up in Saudi Arabia. Why was it important to you to share your story so completely with readers? 

I felt very strongly about sharing my story because people need to know what goes on in a country like Saudi Arabia. People need to know what it means to have a guardian: a brother, a father, a husband who controls your every move. Mostly I wanted to write this story so that other young women like me would know they’re not alone and there is a way out.

You write so matter-of-factly of experiences that can be difficult to read about – being beaten by your mother when she found out from your principal that you had been involved in sexual relationships with other girls at your school, for example. What was it like to revisit these difficult moments from your past through the writing process?

It’s never easy for anyone to revisit abuse. But I felt I needed to do this in order to tell the truth about what happened to me. I’m not the only girl who has been treated like this. And as much as remembering the beatings and the threats brought back the fear – the sometimes suffocating fear that I suffered at the time – I felt somehow stronger for being able to put it all in writing and leaving it there on the page.

What is your involvement with the runaway network now that you have successfully started a new life in Toronto?

I’m always available to help girls, especially runaway girls who need to know how to escape an abusive life. There are networks. I know how to reach them and they know how to reach me. They are secret, of course, but they’re very important to anyone who needs support. It amazes me that even today in Saudi  you have to go to a secret network to find your way. I hope that soon enough people in a position of public safety – police, teachers, community leaders – will be able to identify that call for help and take action.

How did you feel about being granted asylum in Canada given that you had planned to start a new life in Australia? Was living in Canada something you had considered at all before you were granted asylum here?

I was so scared that Australia wouldn’t take me, that they might turn me over to my father who was already in Bangkok with my brother trying to get me back. Can you imagine my relief when the Canadian ambassador asked me if I wanted to go to Canada and when I said yes, he said my visa would be prepared later the same day, and that night I would fly off to Toronto? I could hardly believe my ears. I knew about Canada because most of the runaways in Saudi Arabia reach out to Germany, Sweden, U.K., Canada, and Australia. Not only that, the very first time I found someone online who could put me in touch with the secret network to get me out,  it was a Canadian woman. I will never forget that night as long as I live. I clung to every word she said and really believed that eventually I could be free, too.

When did you decide to share your story with this book, and why did you come to that decision?

Once I got settled in Canada and once I felt a sense of belonging someplace and being safe, I began to recount what had happened to me and various anecdotes that seemed even more shocking now that I was away from the abuse. They kept playing over and over in my mind. Eventually I thought there was a story here that ought to be told. I didn’t know how to go about that, but I asked questions and got good advice from new acquaintances that helped make this happen.

What do you hope readers will gain from learning about the difficulties of your life in Ha’il, and from the story of your ultimate departure from the country and your family?

I hope anyone who reads this book will understand how wrong it is to abuse another person. I hope any reader who is being abused will see that she is not alone and that there are steps she can take to change her life. As for readers who have never been abused I think my story will help them to understand how they can be of assistance to somebody like me.

 What was your first day in Canada like?

My first day in Canada was remarkable. I woke up to the news that my father had disowned me and that there were 100 death threats on my social media and that a winter storm was about to hit Toronto. I hadn’t come this far to be stopped by anything as simple as that. I dropped my last name, cancelled my social media account, and went out to find a store that would sell me a parka and a pair of warm boots. Now I can tell you I’ve not only adjusted to the weather, I’m living my best life.

This interview has been edited and condensed.