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IICSA published its final Report in October 2022. This website was last updated in January 2023.

Anja

Anja

Feeling unloved by her parents made Anja vulnerable to sexual abuse

All names and identifying details have been changed.

Participants have given us permission to share their experiences.

Anja describes growing up in a middle-class family that appeared respectable but was very dysfunctional. 

She says life at home was ‘awful’. She does not remember ever being told she was loved and that left her with a longing for affection. 

Her father was an alcoholic and her mother was often angry, screaming at Anja and her sister and smacking them. She also singled Anja out for verbal abuse, telling her she was a nuisance and blaming her for everything that went wrong at home.

Anja says she did rebel ‘up to a point’, but usually tried to please her mother. 

She went to a Catholic secondary school, and a boy who was several years older than her began paying her a lot of attention. She thinks he saw her as an ‘easy target’. 

At first, she says, the older boy made her feel special; he told her she was beautiful and that they were boyfriend and girlfriend. He took her out and got her drunk and often walked her to the bus after school through the park. However, one day he raped her. 

She describes herself as having been an ‘ignorant virgin’ who didn’t even properly understand how females get pregnant. 

The older boy continued abusing Anja for three years. He raped her vaginally and anally, and made her perform oral sex on him while he strangled her. He told her she was ‘worthless’. 

He also threatened her physically and said he would tell her parents and people at school what they were doing. At the same time, he carried on manipulating her and playing ‘mind games’, sometimes telling her he loved her. 

To add to her misery, Anja was bullied at school. She did not feel able to tell anyone about any of the abuse she was suffering. She says she was labelled as ‘moody’ and comments ‘How is a child like that ever going to get rescued?’

When the older boy left school, Anja thought she might have a reprieve, but, she says, she got into more ‘scrapes’. She became withdrawn and cut off from her friends. 

Her school work had suffered during the time she was being abused. She did manage to catch up after the older boy left school, but her parents would not let her go on to higher education and made her start work instead. 

When Anja was in her late teens, she met a man at a party who she believes drugged her drink. She was raped by him and his friend. She says this experience made her understand that she had been sexually abused as a child. 

When Anja met her future partner, she told him about the abuse. He was very supportive and encouraged her to see a counsellor. She says that without him, she doesn’t know what might have happened to her. She has suffered from depression due to the abuse but he has also supported her with this. 

Anja feels strongly that schools must ensure that children are safe and there should be no hidden spaces where they cannot be seen. She adds that there must be adults available for children to talk to who are separate from teaching staff. She says that too often, ‘adults dismiss what they hear, saying it is in a child’s imagination’. 

As a mother, Anja is determined to teach them to be aware of what touching is inappropriate and to know if they talk about their concerns, they will be believed. 

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