How Could I Report This?

 This post by *Anonymous* outlines multiple incidents of abuse and violation, experienced in Sri Lanka. The writer explains how debilitated and degraded these experiences have made her feel, and the isolation of not being believed by her family, leaving her to carry the injustice and shame of having been mistreated, into her early twenties. As she says, she is worried that the stigma will compromise her employment opportunities, at a time when her life should be opening up.

I would like to stay anonymous.

My country of origin is England (migrated to Sri Lanka at a very young age)

 

The question really is, which incident do I elaborate on? Tragically, I can't count the number of times I've been sexually assaulted in Sri Lanka.

 

It started when I was 8 years old, when my maid molested me. When my parents were out at night she would sleep next to me until they came back, she undressed me and kissed me which is all I can remember. It was a repressed memory that resurfaced ten years later and I don't know for how long or how many times it happened.

 

The next time, I was 13 years old when my tutor molested me. Whilst tutoring me he would ask me what material my shirt was made out of and proceeded to act as though he was feeling the material while reaching inside my shirt and my bra to feel my breasts. This went on for a couple of months before I started flunking my tests and thus changing my tutor.

 

I was 15 years old when I was molested for the third time in my life. The trainer in the gym while stretching me would finger me through my pants. He was 6'2 and I was afraid, he was one of the best trainers and I wanted to get into the national team, perhaps to prove myself worthy so I endured it for months and then gave up on sports completely. I haven't been inside a gym since, I am 22 now.

 

I hadn't spoken a word of this to anyone, it was eating me alive from the inside out. Slowly the trauma and then deafening silence of it started manifesting itself in the form of depression. I was 16 years old with cuts on my wrist and slashes on my thigh trying to make sense of what happened. Alas, I couldn't take it anymore. I attempted suicide at age 16. When I woke up in the ICU the doctor came and asked me why I did what I did and that's the first time I ever spoke about it.

 

I went to therapy and worked on myself as much as possible to get through this and I'm doing much better now after processing it.

 

In relation to how it was handled, my father did not believe me. My mother listened but never addressed it. Society dishes out more shame on the victim than the abuser. Even as I sit here trembling whilst I type, I feel ashamed at what has happened to me. It is incredibly difficult to come forward EVEN whilst being anonymous, I don't know why anyone would doubt a child/adult if he/she/they comes forward with an incident/s like this.  If you have heard someone talking about instances like this, don't be so quick to doubt them!  If you are reading this and you have been abused my only plea is that you talk about it to someone because if you don't it could be seriously detrimental to your mental health.

 

A common misconception I find is that most people think that sexual abuse or rapes are only prevalent outside of Colombo. I've lived in central Colombo since I moved here and I can say that the previous statement is utterly false. I'm sad to say that most of the women that I've shared this experience with have often responded with "me too".

 

You may be wondering why I didn't speak up, why did I endure it? Well for me it was predominantly because it started before I had reached adolescence and I couldn't comprehend what they were doing to me when they were violating me and what they were gaining from doing so.

 

However even when I got older I realized how society shamed the victim, doubted the victim, dismissed the victim. The few times I did speak up, I was called a liar and they rushed to sweep my most traumatic memories under the rug.

 

How could I report this? Even now as I created a fake email address to send this in, I feel ashamed that I'm adhering to this narrative of shaming the victim and I'm not bold enough to put my name on it. I imagine what that would be like, if I did out my name here for the world to see... I know that from that point forward whichever restaurant I go to, I will turn heads and people will discuss amongst themselves that I'm the girl who wrote the letter,  associating my most traumatic memory with me when I know I'm so much more than what happened to me.

 

 I fear that if I go to job interviews that companies will be reluctant to employ me because I'm "too sensitive and take everything the wrong way". So if you're a victim like me, I'm sorry I wasn't courageous enough to put my name here so you can reach out to me and tell me what happened but I beg you, please tell someone, you'd be surprised at how many other women have been through the same.