‘I am a survivor. I will fight it out’

It was joining Taekwondo that helped this 16-year-old say no to the predator in her house, open up about her trauma and start the road to recovery.

I am 16 years old and struggling to recover from the scars of child sexual abuse that have left my inner self battered. The impact has been so severe that today I suffer from severe anxiety, depression, fainting spells, asthma, bronchitis, cyst in ovaries and tinnitus in ears.

The TOI series survivors of sexual violence has given me the courage to write to you. The predator in my case is my choto maama (mother’s younger brother). Now 46, my uncle suffers from depression from his teenage. He has refused to undergo treatment all his life. My grandparents know what he did to me but they have chosen silence over action.

I was separated from my biological father when I was two years old and my mother remarried. Initially, I lived with my maternal grandparents in Delhi till my mother moved to Kolkata in 2008. I joined school in Kolkata but since my grandparents started missing me, my mother took me back to Delhi during the summer vacations. I was 6 years old at that time. My mother returned to Kolkata for work and that is when my ordeal started.

My uncle started showing me porn movies. I can still recall visuals from a movie of a school girl being molested. I trusted my uncle like a father figure but he abused me. He tried putting his penis in my mouth and tried penetration. When he was unable to penetrate my vagina he inserted ballpoint pens. It used to burn for next two days. I would scream in pain but he would close my mouth and keep me in his room all night. He would tell me it's a secret no one should know about. I was totally confused and scared. He would take me to museums, buy me gifts and asked me not to tell anyone what he did to me. At one point he even told me that no one would believe me if I told my grandparents as they love him a lot. He also threatened me.


Again in 2009 we went to Delhi for the summer vacation. My mother dropped me and returned to Kolkata. My uncle continued to abuse me. When I returned to Kolkata after the summer vacation I started having strange abdominal pain and headaches. My mother took me to a doctor who said that it could be physiological or Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.

My mother felt that since she had remarried, I was not able to adjust in a new family. She decided to admit me into a school in Delhi so that I could live with my maternal grandparents. She thought I was suffering from stress as I was missing Delhi and my grandparents. I came to Delhi in 2011. My uncle started coming to my room almost every night and the abuse started again. I started having my periods when I was nine. I would try to save myself by saying that I was having my monthly cycle. Once he caught me lying as he checked and punished me severely. He would torture me and I would keep requesting, ”leave me, leave me please, it’s hurting”. He held my legs so tightly that I had red marks on my thighs. I would pray that someone would come and knock on the door and end my pain. I wanted to die to save myself from the torture. Till date I am fighting my habit of self-harm. I cut myself in places where it stays covered and no one can see it.

I was 11 years old when one day when no one else was at home my uncle raped me. He raped me another day when my grandparents went for a medical check up. He kept repeating that this should be our secret. I was broken and then one day I just refused to go to school. I called my mother and just kept crying and saying "mommy you come here.” I now realise he could have got me pregnant and could have easily killed me.

My mother shifted to Delhi soon after and took up a job here. I continued having school phobia and anxiety. When my mother would go to work the predator – my uncle would come to my room lock the door and molest me in the afternoon.

My grandparents who were always in the house would never try to check why he had locked the room. I joined Taekwondo in year 2013 and finally learnt to say no to the predator in my house.

I returned to Kolkata with my mother. It was on July 31 last year that I gathered the courage and broke my silence. I spoke up about all that had happened to me between 6-12 years of age. When my mother confronted her parents about the paedophile, my grandmother’s reaction was give one slap to your younger brother and never see his face. She went on to tell my mother that she should not tell anyone about this as it will spoil my reputation.

My mother reached out to her elder brother and his family but they refused to help and said that spreading my harrowing experience of abuse will also harm their daughter's future. They initially avoided meeting us and now have no contact with us. My grandparents too have broken all links with us. I overheard my mother talking to a relative saying that my grandmother is spreading lies and calling all the relatives to not keep any contact with us to protect her criminal son.

As things stand today I am still unable to go to a regular school. I am enrolled under the open school system and undergo regular treatment with a psychologist, psychiatrist, pulmonologist, gynaecologist and ENT specialist.

I am a survivor. I will fight it out. I aspire to win this battle and one day become a clinical psychologist. I have started reading, love books, drawing and photography.

I need to be heard. I am aware of the Protection of Children Against Sexual Offences Act but am not yet in a condition to go through the torture of sharing the details of what happened to me again and again. I have been reading about our judicial system and the toll it takes on the survivor.

But who knows I might recover enough and put the paedophile behind bars someday soon.

(This story is part of a series in which survivors of sexual violence share their experiences to help others open up and heal their own trauma)

Read other first person accounts from the series here