Nelum was deflowered in bloom

By Shanika SRIYANANDA

Rape Trauma Syndrome (RTS) was identified in the mid-seventies after studying the typical patterns of rape survivors. RTS describes a process that rape survivors go through in response to the fear experienced during a sexual assault. Although each survivor has their own experience, there are common characteristics some survivors possess. These characteristics are the direct result of the profound fear inherent in sexual assault.

Shock waves alarming parents and renewing their responsibilities in protecting their small children from 'rapists'. It was heart-wrenching to read news articles that revealed that 557 underaged children were raped and another 291 children were subjected to grave sexual harassment during the last five months of this year.

Police

Imagine... with all the laws against rapists two to three children are being raped or sexually abused everyday in Sri Lanka. These figures are only reported cases to the Police but where does the details about the children who suffer silently get recorded?.

This is the story of 13-year-old Thushari of Hakmana, who was raped by 20 men for days and days... the story of seven year-old Krishnakumari Dushyanthi of Kirulapona, who was raped, killed and dumped in a drainage canal... the story of 14-year-old Ramani who was raped and this is the story of hundreds of small girls and boys who are raped and sexually-abused that made us to pen down a true story of a nine-year-old girl from Anuradhapura who was raped by her uncle.Like thousands of such girls and boys she is a survivor.

I met her at the Ranmuthugala Certified school for girls eight months ago while she was attending a book launch by famous children's author Janaki Sooriyarachchi. Over 100 girls who were sent to the home for correction were eagerly watching the latest version of 'Harry Potter' on the screen. The pseudonym Nelum (Lotus) suits the youngest inmate of the Home as she is one among the cleverest girls among all.

Like how the lotus flower blooms beautifully from the murky mud, Nelum in her own way tries to do things better. She speaks well, smiles and dances but at one moment she is lost in her own tiny world with eyes dilating with fear.

The head mistress told me the story of Nelum but as I wanted to know her emotions, I sat next to her to watch the film. Several plastic chairs had to be placed one on top of another to facilitate the girl who was stunted for her age. She was happy as she was sitting high above the others.

Harry Potter entered the house full of horror where ghosts surrounded him. The pin drop silence in the hall was broken as Nelum shouted saying mata bayai mata bayai ( I am scared... I am scared) and she held my hand while leaning towards me with closed eyes.

Secret

I patted her hair gently and the way she placed her head on my shoulders reminded me of my son who was also her age. She silently cried and meekly asked me whether I could keep a 'secret'. I hugged and embraced her and gave her the promise that I would not divulge whatever she told me."Mawa dushanaya kala" ( I was raped) ; that was the secret that haunted her every moment. Just like a small parrot, while watching and making remarks about the film, Nelum unfolded her story where her step-father repeatedly raped her for days and weeks when she was barely eight.

On what earth could a human being rape this bonny little girl and what satisfaction was derived from these evil actions by destroying the future of a little girl? When I remained silent as I was shocked by the unexpected explanation given by a 10-year-old girl like a flower trying to bloom,

she disturbed my thoughts by asking : "Eei oya danne nedda dushanaya karanawa kiyala kiyanne mokkadda kiyala". (Why don't you know the meaning of the word rape). It hurts you. I thought I was going to die. I cried a lot as it hurt me a lot. But 'he' came home everyday during the day time when I came home after school. I had to look after my mentally ill brother until my mother came home after work", Nelum said.

I was speechless without knowing how to answer her. Instead I embraced her and she smiled with bright eyes. The remaining tear drops in her eyes dropped on her floral dress. She took a deep breath and started watching the movie once again holding my hand.She said after her father abandoned the family with two boys and a girl, her mother went to live with another man. She took Nelum while her two brothers were handed over to a children's home in the Anuradhapura district. Drowned in poverty, the mother had no option but to leave Nelum and the newly born mentally retarded son alone at home and go to work on a construction site.

Mother

Nelum said though she loves her mother she was angry with her as she had chosen to live with the 'new man' who found a sadistic satisfaction from this little girl. 'Api ape gedara hitiyanam mehema venne nene. (If we stayed at our own home this will not happen to me)" she said her brother was born with a mental disorder as her mother was bitten by a snake during the pregnancy.

While she was telling her story about how she was raped by the step father, she broke down. Nelum had informed about the chain of incidents that had taken place in the afternoon to her mother when she could not escape the 'evil'. This prompted her mother to drag her to the police station and following her complaint the step father was arrested for raping the girl.

Her eyes became bright and she suddenly exclaimed that she hit the man with a stone and injured him the day he was brought to the Police station. "I hate him and I was happy as I injured his head. when it was bleeding I laughed and laughed", the girl giggled happily taking out her anger which was bottled up for so many days.

The little girl said she was scared to sleep at night as she visualized the incident in her dreams and sometimes when she sees men in the Home where she is now hid herself thinking they came to rape her. She even lives with constant fear as she had threatened to kill the little girl if she had told the 'secret' to any one.

Until she comes to the Home she only knew that she was 'badly hurt' by the man, but now she is aware that she was 'raped' as there are many more teenagers who were raped by blood relations or neighbours. Pain, the silence, the stigma and shame surround these girls who were raped and sexually abused. They shared their bitter experiences with their 'chutti nangi' who cried due to body ache when she was brought to the home. She introduced her loku akkas (older sisters) who were raped and sent to the Home to 'correct' and protect them from the predators. Though they showed happy faces, all of them were backward, they talk very little and always tried to be alone.

At the end of the session Nelum cried and became uncontrollable as she was pleading with me saying she wants her amma. Nothing could calm her and the Head mistress had to give her mother a telephone call to her mother and when she heard her mother's voice she subsided. The end of Nelum's story the rapist is serving a prison term, but the little girl escaped death and is in an orphanage as her mother is scared to keep her alone at home.

Though she was too young to control her emotions and also unaware of the gravity of 'dooshanaya', her backwardness and attempts to escape from others showed that Nelum lives with shame and betrayal. Still in her youthful age, the only thing she couldn't bare was being apart from her ever-smiling little brother and is yearning for her mother's love.

M. A. Nimalsiri Ranasinghe, Counselling officer of the Ministry of Women's Affairs: Rape or sexual abuse on underaged children affects them mentally and psychologically.

When a minor, a child between the age of 6 to 12 years is raped or sexually abused, some girls will not have any fear for sexual activities as they tend to think it is just another activity by people. It becomes a common occurrence and especially the girls will have a liking towards older men. When they reach 15 years some of them begin love affairs purely to get over the experience.

The girls always think that the environs around them are not safe for them and are living in constant fear, which leads to heightened anxiety. They will also suffer from withdrawal symptoms and like to be isolated from others as they think they are rejected by society due to the incident.

Most importantly these children neglect their studies and will have a hatred towards society. Some tend to take revenge from older people while some will not have any association with males.As the flashbacks of the incident always persist in their minds, the girls - the survivors- often lose trust in people.

They start to think that sex is something painful due to their bitter experience at a tender age.

They will have frequent flashbacks of the moment they were raped and when they become adults girls who have been raped see sex not as a pleasant act to be shared between mutual partners but as a dirty and painful physical activity that should be avoided. This feeling affects their married life.

Intimate relationships are adversely affected as suspicion lingers on in the minds of survivors. For many of these girls, a sexual response during rape becomes a 'trigger' for negative beliefs about themselves during consensual sexual experiences and they become disinterested in sex later as their first experience about sex was rape!.