have been raped.
A hand somewhere it shouldn't be.
An inappropriate gesture.
Someone being too close.
For me that moment came when I was 19. I had just left home. The kind of leaving home you do when you grab all you can take in one bag and run without telling any one.
Safe to say, things weren't too good at home.
I ended up sharing a place with a former soldier who seemed kind of cool until he started peeing in the sink - that's if he made it that far. He was a full on alcoholic. But he kinda looked after me. Made sure I ate, even if it was just toast.
One night, his girlfriend's brother turned up. He was just out of prison, but being young and naive I liked to treat everyone the same, so when they asked me to join them for a drink in the living room I agreed.
Not that I drink. Nope, I stuck to soft drinks.
The brother sat down next to me on the sofa with his beer, but he kept inching closer and closer
to me, which freaked me out a bit.
"Hey," I thought, "he's just being friendly."
But then under the pretence of brushing some crumbs off me, he put
his hands on my lap area and left them there. My flatmate and his girlfriend saw
it, but they just grinned as though this was normal behaviour, as he stroked me
through the fabric of my jeans.
Then he put his arm round my shoulder and roughly pulled me down towards him.
I knew what was going to happen next.
Shoving him off, I leapt up and muttered something about getting some
snacks from the kitchen, I ran off.
Heart pounding, I grabbed a knife from the kitchen and ran into my bedroom, barricading the door with furniture. There wasn’t a lock.
A few minutes later, he was outside my door. "Come and join us, darling. I'm lonely."
I ignored him, even when he began pounding on the door, shouting "Crazy bitch."
I'd rather be crazy than be raped.
The next day, he was gone and my flatmate and his girlfriend acted like nothing had
happened. With nowhere to go, I had to stay there until I could find somewhere
else to live.
Footnote – I was lucky. I was terrified and shaking with fear, but I escaped. So many women aren’t so lucky.
Women like Marte Dalelv, a Norwegian lady who was working in Dubai when she was raped by a colleague.
She reported the rape and was sentenced to 16-months in prison for having extramarital sex, drinking alcohol, and perjury. When she reported the rape to police, she had her passport and money seized so she couldn’t leave the country.
Read the full story here
Her alleged attacker, received a 13-month sentence for extra-marital sex and alcohol consumption.