"It is all your fault."

It happened the first time when I was four years old. It was summer, the sun was shining and the birds were singing. There has never been a warmer summer so it seems, and that day was especially hot. The older people were moaning about the weather, wanting it to be cooler, but I was happy. We had this little pool, it didn't carry much water but it didn't matter. It was enough for me to have fun. My life was perfect, I was living the typical happy life that a kid should live, until this very moment that changed my whole life.

A hand grabbed my shoulder and pulled me into a bush. I tried to scream but I couldn't. Someone was doing things to me that I had no idea what they were and what they meant.
I screamed "I'm going to tell my parents" after it stopped. Two dark eyes were staring into my frightful eyes, telling me: "You have been a very bad girl. Your parents will be very mad at you for doing what you just did". "No they love me", I said with tears running down my eyes. He laughed, "They have your baby sister now, they don't need you anymore". I cried while he continued, "What you just have done was very bad and if anyone finds out you will disgrace your family and they will be chased out of the village. It will all be your fault".

I couldn't tell anyone about it. My parents would hate me if they knew what I did. How could I have known that it was all not my fault? I was only four years old. God sees everything, they always said. I way praying to God to forgive me for the bad that I have done.

He came back, the whole summer long, again and again, forcing me to do things I didn't know what they were, except that they were making me a bad girl, hurting me, intimidating me. I had to lie to my family because they couldn't find out. I lied to them about where I was. I didn't want them to know how bad I was. I didn't want them to get chased out of the village. But lying is bad the bible says. I wasn't just a bad girl, I was horrible. God, please forgive me.

I knew him, I knew his face. Our parents were friends and he was often told to take care of me when my parents weren't at home. He was our neighbour, 15 years old, a good boy they said. There was no place where he could not find me. He was everywhere. And it never stopped. I was having my fifth, sixth, seventh and eighth birthday, and more to come.

I was staying distant to everyone who used to be close to me. They'll notice how bad I am, I thought if I got too close to them. The kid's didn't like playing with me, I was bitchy to my parents. I wanted to have friends so bad, but I had no self-esteem, I didn't know how to talk to them, how to talk. How could they play with puppets when it is nothing like real life? I lost my childhood; I lost some of the most precious things in life: friends, love, and happiness. How could someone really love me if they knew what I have done? My parents always said they love me but I always thought if they knew how bad I was they wouldn't love me anymore.

The summers were worst because I was always sent outside to play. In winter I had some time of peace because I was barely sent outside. The years went by and I stopped to cry. I was letting him do what he wanted. I couldn't do anything anyways because I didn't want to put shame on my family. Nevertheless, one day I got the best news of my life. We were moving. We were moving far, far away. I must have been about 14.


In the years to come I never told anyone about what he has done to me. I didn't want to disappoint anyone. I kept it to myself, learnt to live with it and continued my life. I always had trouble finding friends, I had trouble finding a boyfriend, I had trouble opening up to anybody. I was living solitary, all by myself.

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"Als der Mann kam und mich mitnahm" is the title of a book that I am reading right now. In English it means "As the man came and took me". It is telling the truestory of the abuse of a four year old kid in a small German village. The little girl was being raped over years by a fourteen year old young man. The story was in the news in Germany a couple of years ago because there were several victims and none of them ever dared to talk about it. Even now that they are all in their 50s they still have trouble dealing with what has happened to them. The rapists were two in number, and they raped kids again and again. In over 40 years no one ever stopped them.

Not every detail that I wrote above is taken from the book, I made up the ending myself because I simply haven’t finished reading the book yet. But it touches me so much that I already now felt like writing about it.

Thousands of kids get raped every year. They are too young to understand what is happening to them. They are too scared of what their tormentors tell them. When reading the book I always have tears in my eyes. How could no one have noticed what has happened? How could they just not see it?

I don’t know really why I wrote this blog, I just felt like I had to. We have to be aware that things like that unfortunately happen all the time and we have to fight against it. Most of the victims never dare to speak. We must learn to be more aware of our environment. We must learn to be more sensitive about how people around us are feeling, acting.



And we must prosecute and punish the tormentors harder!