Tracey was abused by several people, but feels that she is the only one who has been punished
All names and identifying details have been changed.
Participants have given us permission to share their experiences.
For as far back as she can remember, Tracey was physically abused by her mother and stepfather. She remembers sexual abuse by her stepfather from when she was a young child, through to her early teenage years.
When she disclosed the sexual abuse inadvertently to a teacher, the police and social services were called in.
Tracey says a social worker told her to phone her mother and inform her that her stepfather was going to be arrested, and to tell her why. Tracey did not want to do this. She wanted the social worker to tell her mother and thought that the social worker should have told her mother.
Her stepfather was removed from the house and Tracey was given a medical examination. She was not warned this would involve an internal examination and when the male doctor examined her it caused her to panic. Because of this, the doctor said he could find no sign of abuse. Her stepfather was not charged, and he returned home.
After this, Tracey kept running away to avoid her abuser, until her mother threw her out of the home. A social worker took her to a foster family, without any explanation.
Early in her stay, Tracey recalls that she was in her room trying to understand what was happening when her foster mother came upstairs and beat her. That night, her foster father sexually abused her. She says she expected both physical and sexual abuse as she thought ‘That’s what parents do’.
The sexual abuse would happen most nights, but she describes feeling detached from it, because the abuse by her stepfather had been worse.
The foster mother continued to physically abuse Tracey, on one occasion pushing her over. Tracey banged her head on the ground and says she thought she was going to die.
She told her college what had happened, and they called social services. The social worker sat Tracey down in front of her foster parents and asked her if they had abused her.
Tracey went upstairs, her foster mother followed and told Tracey that if she would tell the social worker she was lying about the abuse, the foster mother would love her like a real mother.
Tracey did what was she was asked. She says she wanted to be loved and no one had believed her before anyway.
However, she was asked if she wanted to leave her foster parents’ home and she chose to go. Tracey feels the foster parents fostered children only because they wanted the money that came with it.
Tracey says she feels broken by what happened to her and that the abuse is a legacy she will never be rid of.
She has made a life for herself, but her mental health has suffered, and she wants recognition that what happened to her was wrong.
She says no one has ever been punished for what happened, except for her.
Tracey would like her social worker to be held accountable as she did not do the right thing. She considers the social worker complicit in the abuse by not acting on information and by seeing her as a ‘bad child’.