Elisha says she didn’t finish her schooling and became promiscuous after she was abused
All names and identifying details have been changed.
Participants have given us permission to share their experiences.
Elisha grew up in an urban community where children played out together. She was sexually abused by some teenage boys.
Elisha describes her upbringing in the 1980s in a large city, where parents in the surrounding streets let their children play outside and go to the park together.
When she was about six years old, three sons from one family in the neighbourhood started asking Elisha to go out with them. The oldest, Arjun, was in his early 20s, Ishan was in his late teens and Adit was about 13. Her mother agreed she could go with them.
Over the next four years, the boys sexually abused Elisha. This included anal and vaginal rape. Sometimes cousins and friends of the boys joined in.
The abuse ended when the family moved house. Elisha thinks she ‘shut away’ a lot of her memories until she had a conversation with a friend about sexual abuse, and ‘it was like a floodgate opened’.
More detailed memories of the abuse came back to her. She remembered the boys and young men laying down coats for her to lie on and making her ‘do all sorts of things … it felt like it went on for hours’. She remembered smells associated with the abuse, and the pain of it.
Elisha also recalled that the boys’ mother once caught them abusing her. She chased Elisha away, calling her abusive names.
After this, Elisha started smoking weed and drinking alcohol. She says she ‘didn’t really finish school’ and failed important exams.
Elisha became promiscuous and took risks with her safety. Certain things still trigger memories of the abuse, she finds trust and relationships very difficult and says she still sometimes drinks too much and gets ‘very down’. She has had a breakdown and been diagnosed with PTSD. She has felt ashamed, and that she ‘brought it on herself’.
She finds it hard to understand how her parents did not realise she was being abused for four years, but she says ‘they were very wrapped up in themselves’.
As a young adult, Elisha reported the sexual abuse to the police. She says they seemed to take it seriously and interviewed her, but subsequently said they couldn’t trace the abusers, even though she gave them details.
Elisha believes that children should have good quality sex education from primary school, and that there should be more work done to raise awareness of child sexual abuse.
She finds therapy and exercise helpful. She has a successful career and says she doesn’t want abuse to define her.