Seeing younger members of her family growing up reminds Renee of the sexual abuse she suffered
All names and identifying details have been changed.
Participants have given us permission to share their experiences.
Renee was subjected to sexual abuse on several occasions when she was a child.
Fifty years later, the memories of these experiences are still vivid and continue to affect her.
The first time Renee was abused was when she was very young, and two older boys who lived next door forced an object into her vagina. She remembers it was extremely painful.
She says this experience made her mistrustful of other children, and she went through her school life finding it hard to make many friends.
When Renee was about seven years old, her family moved house and she was sent to a new primary school. She says that one of the teachers would call children up to his desk, and touch them sexually. She was one of a group of children with extra learning needs, and says the same teacher would take the group into a store cupboard.
On one of these occasions, he put Renee’s hand inside his trousers and she felt him ejaculate, although at the time she didn’t know what this was. She remembers the teacher wiping her hand roughly after he ejaculated. The other children were there at the time, but she says they ‘seemed not to notice’.
Renee recalls other girls at the primary school regularly sexually abusing her. They made her stand on a toilet while one or two of them touched her. She describes this as ‘something of a game that just went on in those days’.
Another episode of sexual abuse occurred when she was about 12 and was sent to see a chiropodist. She was on her own, and he put his hands up her skirt. Afterwards, she told her mother and she was interviewed by the police. However, she did not hear anything more and she says this left her feeling she had not been believed.
Renee says that although the sexual abuse she experienced ended decades ago, it still has an impact on her life. Her confidence and her learning were adversely affected.
She has suffered from flashbacks as her children and grandchildren have passed different age milestones that trigger memories of things that happened to her.
Renee feels that adults involved with children should notice their behaviours and try to understand what they may be trying to convey. She adds that children should not be left unsupervised with other children or adults.
Finally, she emphasises that authorities should keep children informed of investigations that follow them making an allegation of sexual abuse.