A Canadian woman, originally from Chennai has filed a complaint against a relative of hers who had sexually abused her as a child in an attempt to break the silence around dealing with paedophiles.
“I am 52 now and I still find it difficult to talk about it… how do you expect 10 and 11-year-olds to go to the police and talk about being sexually abused. I just wanted to let paedophiles know they are no longer protected by our silence. The only way to start turning the tide is to break the silence. If you shine the light on it, it can’t hide anymore,” she told The Hindu.
The incidents of abuse happened when she was around 10 years old and lived in various homes in Anna Nagar and Shenoy Nagar. They apparently stopped when she told the man to stop.
After she watched a TV show in Canada and then started reading about it, she realized he was doing something wrong. In her 20s, I tried to lodge a complaint in India through her brother, but that did not work since there were no laws pertaining to sexual abuse in the country as of then.
For a while, she kept information about being abused to herself but when a niece was about to move to India with her family, she was afraid she too may have to face such a situation and then informed her family.
Her brother tried to reach him and at first, he denied having done anything. But when he persisted, the man confessed to what he had done. However, he said he had done it out of love for her. His wife told her she had forgiven him, but for her, it was never forgotten.
Since her family knew about his acts, they ensured that she did not meet him anywhere. In 2013, she decided it was time something was done about the matter and took it to the Canadian police. Though a file was created since, the perpetrator was not in Canada and when the incidents happened, she was not in Canada, nothing could be done.
“I was advised to mail the report made by the Canadian police to the police in India. I mailed it in March and I didn’t expect to hear back from them. But I did. I met a senior police who assured action,” she said.