Kitty was scolded ‘We don’t like children who tell lies’ when she tried to report she had been abused
All names and identifying details have been changed.
Participants have given us permission to share their experiences.
Kitty was an evacuee during the Second World War. She suffered cruelty and sexual abuse and was told she was a liar when she tried to report it.
She wants to deliver the message ‘Please, please, please believe little children’.
Kitty was six years old when she was evacuated from the city. She travelled by train and coach to the village hall where the Women’s Voluntary Service (WVS) had organised for local families to pick a child.
There was confusion over her placement and she describes how she was ‘left alone on the street corner with my little bundle’. But then the family she had been allocated to arrived, and Kitty says that for about a year she was very happy with them.
She explains that evacuees were not able to travel outside the area in which they were placed. When her host family had to attend a funeral in another part of the country, Kitty was placed with another family who had a daughter and a son.
On the first night Kitty was allowed to sleep in a bed with the daughter but after that she was made to sleep alone in the air raid shelter. It was winter, she had a blanket but no pillow and she remembers being very cold.
She says throughout her stay with this family, she was ignored by the mother and tormented and physically abused by the daughter. She describes herself as being ‘a very frightened little girl’.
The abuse by the father in this family, Mr A, began soon after she was placed with them. He would take her into a small box room to sexually abuse her, and he also psychologically and emotionally abused her.
He would tell Kitty she was an evil and wicked child and this was why her mother didn’t visit and why there was a war. Kitty says she believed him and it was only later that she found out the reason her mother didn’t visit was because she was having another child.
Mr A showed Kitty the red sky at night and told her this was her city burning. Kitty knew her mother was still in the city and this frightened her.
Kitty describes how when Mr A was sexually abusing her, she would shut her eyes so she couldn’t look at what was happening.
After the incident of sexual abuse, Kitty told the WVS lady what Mr A had done to her, and she also told her teacher. Both of them scolded the little girl and told her not to tell lies.
During the three or four months Kitty lived with this family, Mr A regularly abused her. She remembers feeling during that time ‘I hadn’t been naughty. I went to school, washed myself, combed my hair and made sure I had the right clothes … when all this was happening I thought God didn’t love me as he didn’t help me’.
One day, after Mr A had sexually abused Kitty, he opened the window and threatened to throw her out. At that moment, Kitty’s mum was walking up the path to the house with her new baby and saw what he was doing.
Kitty thinks the police were called but they didn’t do anything. When her mum spoke to the WVS about the abuse and neglect of her daughter, the organisation denied any knowledge of Kitty telling them what had been happening.
Kitty’s mother immediately took her home and told her daughter to forget about what had happened. Kitty says ‘You didn’t talk about it because people didn’t believe it happened’.
She finds it hard to trust people and it takes a long time for her to make friends.
She married, and believes her mother may have told her husband about the abuse because he promised he would never hurt her.
She recently told her grown-up son she had been abused and says he has been very supportive. He suggested Kitty has some counselling. She says she thought ‘It might go away if I don’t think about it, but it doesn’t’.
After Kitty spoke to the Truth Project she said she felt relieved to have let it out. She feels very strongly that children don’t tell lies about abuse and they should be listened to.