Speaking about sexual abuse, Hira says ‘There was the shame of it getting out ... you would be tainted’
All names and identifying details have been changed.
Participants have given us permission to share their experiences.
Hira grew up in a large family in what she describes as a middle-class area. Her parents had migrated to Britain from south Asia, and their cultural and religious heritage was pivotal to their lives.
Fear of causing distress to her family and the community, and of being stigmatised prevented Hira from speaking out when she was sexually abused by a relative, and later by a religious teacher.
Hira explains that she has blocked out a lot of what happened in her childhood – probably about three quarters of her early memories. But she has clear images of the sexual abuse and can identify when it happened by the school years that she was in at the time.
When she was about six years old, some relatives came to live with her family while they were looking for their own place to live. One day, her uncle collected her from school, claiming he had permission from her parents. He took her to an empty property and sexually abused her.
The abuse continued for about two years, in Hira’s home, in the perpetrator’s home and on outings. Sometimes his family members would be in the same room when it occurred.
Hira says that she once threatened to tell her mother, but the abuser told her she would not be believed. He then falsely claimed she had been stealing, and her mother beat her in front of him.
The abuse ended after the relative was seen with another young girl in his car. Hira does not know exactly what happened, but the police were involved, and her mother asked her if ‘anything had happened’ to her. On hearing that it had, Hira says her mother and her aunt covered up the abuse.
She explains that at the time, she would not have wanted anything else. She believes her father would have killed the abuser – the two men did not have a good relationship and she believes that she may have been abused ‘out of vengeance’ for this.
Hira adds that if the abuse had become known it would have had a devastating effect on her within her family and the community, causing damage to her marriage and life prospects.
She suffered further sexual abuse when she was a few years older by a religious teacher who ran an informal mosque school in his home. This abuse ended after she ran home to escape, and told her mother she was never going back. She says ‘I think she guessed why’.
When Hira was in her mid teens and at secondary school, she says she had ‘a bit of meltdown’. She thinks this was possibly triggered by the smell of a teacher’s aftershave, but she stresses that he did nothing inappropriate. She was in such distress that she thought about taking her own life, and she felt that she wanted to kill her uncle.
She wrote a long letter with ‘pages and pages’ describing her experiences and feelings, and gave it to a teacher she trusted. It was passed to another teacher that she did not get on with. She remembers being clear that she didn’t want any action taken, saying again that the cultural issues she had to contend with made her feel this way.
She says that now, with hindsight ‘I wish they had talked to me and offered me support privately. It was too big a burden. But I was dealing with lots of cultural issues, and to this day I would not have wanted my family involved’.
Hira abandoned her religion and married someone from outside her culture, and says that during that time, she did not think about the abuse. But attending counselling last year, following her marriage breakdown, made her realise how much it has affected her life.
She describes some of the wide-ranging impacts: as a child she used to feel so anxious she became physically ill and that can still happen now; as a young adult, she ‘went off the rails’; she feels insecure about her body and has difficulties with sex and relationships and she has had suicidal thoughts. She finds it hard to develop ‘honest and meaningful’ relationships, but adds that she is working on improving that by sharing her experiences of sexual abuse with some friends, and it has been a relief to do this.
Hira has several suggestions to help prevent the abuse of children. She says schools should never allow children to go off with anyone, even relatives, without clear consent from parents.
She would like to see more focus on understanding cultural issues in safeguarding. She says ‘I think I would have been able to talk about it if I thought there was no risk of it affecting my family’.
Hira also stresses the importance of access to support for children, describing how she used to call Childline from a phonebox. She says ‘I don’t really remember the conversations but just knowing someone was there helped’.
She adds that there should be more awareness raising of child sexual abuse and safeguarding training among religious leaders and in the community. But, she says, ‘I don’t know how you tackle the stigma. I don’t identify with the community but I would still not want this to come out’.
Hira concludes that she feels good about talking to the Truth Project about her experiences. She is successful in her career and says ‘Now I want to be positive and proactive and turn it into a way to help other people … like volunteering in schools’.