Instead of being seen as a victim of abuse, Katrina was blamed for being ‘badly behaved’
All names and identifying details have been changed.
Participants have given us permission to share their experiences.
Katrina spent her early years ‘terrified’ of her mother, who was physically and emotionally abusive.
When she was an adolescent, her mother sexually exploited her.
Katrina was born in the late 1940s. For as far back as she can remember, she felt that her mother didn’t like her and saw her as a ‘nuisance’. Katrina remembers constantly trying to please and placate her mother, but she says, ‘I couldn’t stop her nastiness’.
Katrina suffered from asthma, and remembers telling a doctor when she was a small child ‘Mummy hits me a lot’. She was told that her mother hit her because she loved her.
She adored her father, and says he was kind, but weak. As she grew older, she realised her mother was having affairs with other men. When Katrina was about 13, her mother took her to meet two men she liked.
One of the men, Arnar, showed an interest in Katrina which annoyed her mother, but she began taking Katrina out with her on ‘dates’. Katrina remembers she and her mother being picked up and taken to a coffee bar where they were introduced to several men from abroad.
She describes these men as ‘uneducated, not wealthy, but they really liked young girls’.
Katrina’s mother began having sex with Arnar and his friend in the back of their van. At the same time, Arnar was making sexual advances to Katrina. She resisted at first, but her mother said she should ‘let him have a little feel’. She says ‘I did what I was told, there was also this deep feeling that if I spoiled the game, it would be worse for me’.
Arnar started collecting Katrina from school, and encouraged her to bring a friend along. She says her mother was ‘horrified’ about this, but she thinks this was probably because her mother was annoyed that he preferred Katrina to her.
Arnar began ‘sharing’ Katrina around the other men he knew. She was sexually abused in vans, cars and houses. She remembers working out one day that she had been abused by almost 30 men.
Sometimes the abuse took place in Katrina’s home, and she once saw her mother taking money from the men afterwards.
She says she knew that what was happening was wrong, but can remember feeling that she wanted to please people, and she liked what she saw as ‘warmth, affection and cuddles’.
When Katrina was 14, she and her mother were taken to the police station. Her mother told her that she would go to prison and Katrina would be taken into care if she spoke to them about the abuse.
She says she ‘said little and lied’. She remembers the police officers being crass and harsh, and she was subjected to an internal examination.
Katrina recalls appearing in court and then being in a police cell on her own. From there she was taken to some sort of centre where she was kept for three months with no education. After this, she was fostered and says her foster mother was ‘lovely’.
Katrina was treated for a sexually transmitted infection and sent back to school, although she found it hard to engage with education or make friends. She thinks she had ‘grown up too quickly’ and found it childish.
After a while, Katrina was returned home to her parents by her social worker. Her mother told people that Katrina was ‘a very bad girl and had to be put away’ and Katrina thinks the social workers believed this.
The abuse had a significant impact on Katrina’s life. She has suffered poor mental health, with flashbacks, depression and PTSD. She has low self-esteem and finds it hard to trust people.
Katrina would like to see better training for doctors, police officers and social workers about child abuse. She adds that the voices of victims and survivors should be included in safeguarding training.
She says she has had years of therapeutic support, some of which she has paid for, that has been helpful. She also practises yoga and meditation. She says ‘I was always running from the past but now I can stand still and look at the future ... I know what it is like to feel normal now, I didn’t before’.
Katrina has a very close relationship with her children, and has studied and done well in her career.