Antoinette says ‘The abuse never leaves me’
All names and identifying details have been changed.
Participants have given us permission to share their experiences.
Antoinette was fostered as a baby, and was sexually abused by members of her foster family.
The foster mother blamed Antoinette for the abuse, and social services left her with the foster family even after she had told them what was happening.
Antoinette explains that her biological mother was not in a stable relationship with her father. She says ‘When I was born, mum didn’t want me. She gave me to a friend who privately fostered me and I became a ward of court’.
She adds that she didn’t see her biological mother again until she was an adult.
Antoinette’s foster mother had two sons who were much older than Antoinette. Both of them sexually abused her.
Antoinette says ‘I don’t know how old I was but remember the first time it happened. I remember one of them touching me and penetrating me, and me saying that it hurt’. She thinks she must have been about five at the time.
She continues ‘From then on it happened nearly every day by one or other of them’.
The abuse continued until Antoinette was in her early teens. She says ‘By the time I was 12, being abused was normal for me … sometimes I would go to my brothers myself because I didn’t know any different’.
When she was about 15, Antoinette says she realised the abuse was not right, and she wanted it to stop.
‘That’s when I contacted the social worker and told her I wanted to leave and why. They put me with another family.’ ‘I felt safe with the new family’, she says.
However, for reasons Antoinette does not understand, after a time she was sent back to the first foster family. The brothers began abusing her again, and she says they became more aggressive.
Antoinette says that her foster mother saw her sons abusing her several times ‘but she would beat me and tell me it was my fault’.
Antoinette adds that one of the brothers was also violent towards her if she didn’t do what he wanted. He once choked her with a piece of wire. Both of the brothers emotionally abused her. ‘I was constantly told their mum wasn’t my mum, that my real mum didn’t want me.’
The abuse ended when her foster brothers eventually moved out of the house.
Antoinette suffers with depression and other significant mental health issues. She takes medication and has regular support from mental health services.
She had several different social workers when she was in foster care. Once she attempted to take her own life. She recalls ‘A nurse said I was attention seeking … no one asked me why, no one sat with me. They just left me on my own’.
Antoinette is now married with grown-up children. She adds that she still feels very angry that her foster mum and social workers let the abuse happen.