I won?t be silent anymore

How shall I tell my story? What if my father discovers that I have sold him out? Well since I have made up my mind to speak out I am not longer afraid I will tell it anyway.  I know the consequences of my speaking out my father will abandon my mother and my father will disown me but for now I do not care any more.

I vividly remember how my father used to abuse me …

Daddy has come home. I have to run to him alongside my little brother Jack to welcome him after a day at work. I don’t want to go but I am afraid that he will scold me if I don’t and later he will punish me alone when he comes to my room.

I am sitting on Daddy’s lap now and he is stroking my hair. "And how is my little angel? Was school okay? Mmm?" he asks, murmuring into my ear. I feel uncomfortable at the pit of my stomach like I want to vomit. I do not reply as I stare into a beautiful picture of a beetle on the television screen.

At the dinner table, Jack teases me mercilessly as usual and mother looks at me disapprovingly when I try to protest. Daddy says nothing. Mother looks at me with such intense anger that I shut up immediately.

Ever since that afternoon when I told her about Daddy, she seems to hate me so much. She yelled at me and almost beat me up and warned me never to tell anyone again.

Back in my room, I cuddle Betty, my rag doll, to my chest then I get into the covers and wait. I hold on to the tiny blue pebble in my hand. It is my lucky pebble. I found it in the garden when we were playing peek-a-boo with Jack early today. Maybe my fairy godmother will protect me tonight. Maybe the pebble will send him away.

Thump…thump…thump… I hear him approach. Soon he will be in my room. Soon, he will rape me. Soon he will hurt me again. I shudder as think of yet another experience that keeps breaking my heart. I promise myself that today I will do everything possible that to stop him.

Knock. Knock here he comes. I do not answer. I hear the doorknob twist. There he is in my room. He touches me and tells me again that I am his good girl. He threatens that if I dare deny him he will kill me. I do not want to die I want to finish school and be a doctor.  Oh my god why am I so powerless he did it again. Whom shall I tell not even
my mother or my best friend?

I cannot speak out. I have been suffering in silence. I feel ashamed and confused.  My father always threatened me if I dare expose him. My mother, the only person I thought I trusted, could not help me. My mother who is beaten by my father almost every night
does not want to admit that I am being abused by her husband.

She is trapped by this crime of shame. She feels like a failure. She blames herself and feels helpless in the situation. She is in denial.

But enough is enough. He won’t do that to me, not any more.  I thought deeply and decided to run away from home and sought refuge at my grandmother house in the village. I would rather be in village and suffer that to stay in a mansion and be sexually abused. I did not care what she was going to tell me but she was on my side.
Thanks to my grandmother the matter has been taken to the Civil Liberties Committee where the big boss there has promised to help me and ensure that my father is taken to book.

The only thing that worries me is whether the courts will really listen and believe my story. I know of a similar case that was taken to court in Dedza the southern part of Malawi where a girl my age who made pregnant by her father and after she reported
the matter to CILIC who took her case to the courts it ruled that her father should marry her. I was disgusted and I am still afraid at least I am not pregnant although it makes me to be more scared, as it would be difficult to convince the court about my case.

I know I am not alone. A lot of children like me who may even younger are being abused by their father it not their uncles or their close relatives. Here in my country Malawi I understand the offence is classified as incest because it is a sexual abuse
committed on a minor by a close relative.

For a young girl like me to walk into a police station to report that I have been raped by my own father has it takes up all one’s strength and will. The reception of the police is
always hostile and judgmental.

In Malawi, it is not surprising to find police traumatising the victim even more by asking her to recount the rape ordeal again and again or even tease her by asking questions like, "Did you enjoy it?" or "Are you sure you did not encourage him/them?"

I am proud today that I have come out in the open to talk about my ordeal and I guess by the time you read this article my father would be in jail and my mother would have disowned me cause I hear she has come to my grandmother’s place twice accusing her of encouraging me to have my father arrested.

What I say to those children who are being sexually abused by their relatives is that you do not tolerate that flee before it is too late. I know it is hard to do so but you just have to let yourself be reminded of the evils of incest it is wrong and bad do not allow it.