[caption id="attachment_184422" align="alignnone" width="550"]
Yuimi Vashum (fourth from left) along with staff of Modern College, Kohima on Monday. (EM Images)[/caption]
Our Correspondent
Kohima, May 21 (EMN): A survey across 26 states in India conducted in 2017 by a humanitarian aid organisation revealed that one in every two children is a victim of sexual abuse. However, there continues to be perceptible silence on the subject. Besides, the extent of sexual violence against children remain vague.
“Child sexual abuse is a silent epidemic, breeding at a rapid pace because you refuse to talk about it. It is not a pleasant topic but change begins with uncomfortable conversations. There are people out there, waiting for such conversations to happen,” says Yuimi Vashum, a 28-year old who suffered abuse as a child and has now turned to blogging and writing poetry to begin a movement to ‘break the silence.’
Delivering a powerful talk on the subject at Modern College in Kohima on Monday, Vashum described how her childhood shaped a desire to start conversation to create awareness and encourage others to speak out. For her, to talk about it was to help prevent hundreds of other children from going through what she did.
The discourse was conducted based on the theme ‘The decision to break the silence starts with you: From a victim to a fighter.’
“I looked back to the unpleasant events in my life and decided to take this as an opportunity to start the uncomfortable conversation because there are children out there, waiting for conversations like this to happen. There are broken souls out there who need to be told that none of this is our fault and what happened to us in the shadows shall not keep us down for life,” she asserted.
Citing studies that reveal 93% of abusers prey on children who are close to them, she said that predators could be uncles, aunts, brothers, cousins, teachers and in some cases, even parents. She also spoke about the importance of involving both genders in these conversations as the rate of sexual abuse affecting boys was as high as girls.' The conversation can be had in spite of the fact that the former refuse to speak up due to the stigma and the misconception that sexual abuse does not happen to males.
Vashum narrated how she was subjected to abuse by relatives which started when she was just seven years old till she was in fourth standard. The physical pain and discomfort which she complained about had often gone unnoticed. Her grandmother and aunts whom she lived with could not comprehend that someone related to them could be a sexual predator and harm a young child like her then.
Although she did not know what was happening to her then, it was only when she grew older that through different subjects of science, she learned about the physical body, then about rape, molestation etc.
“You have no idea how bad I felt for myself. Yet, I will tell you this: It was such a relief to finally have a name and a term for something that happened to me when I was a kid. Because at that time, I did not know what was happening to me. So by the time I was in senior year, I was already the most aggressive kid in school, who made it her mission to fight with boys even for the slightest reasons,” Vashum explained. Her story did not end there: when she was in the 12th standard, one of her teachers tried to grope her. She reacted by slapping the teacher and ran off.
“My mistake was that I did not report the incident. I’m standing here at this juncture now, and I am thinking how many more students could this teacher have abused and how many I could have stopped if I reported him,” she said.
Vashum came up with a poetry collection called ‘Love. Lust. And Loyalty’ where, in her words, “I forced myself to walk through the painful memories of acknowledging what happened to me, to move on. Because to deny is to let the abusers have power over me, and to never talk about it is to let them breed all the more.”
After her book was launched in 2017 at Valley of Words: International Literature and Arts Festival in Dehradun, she said to have addressed similar conversations and came to know that every third person she spoke to had been sexually abused during their childhood by people close to them but had hidden the incidents. Among those who opened up, she said, a few were grown men.
“My journey to forgiveness of myself and my abusers, has not been easy. But I did forgive so that I could learn about healthy relationships about trust, about courage, and most importantly, about boundaries.”
“If there is someone out there who is going through what I went through then I urge you to start saying ‘no’. The two-letter word is the first big step to courage and to self love. If there is someone who is harming you, know that none of this is your fault. This is not who you are, this is not your identity, and you need to make it stop right now. Don’t hold yourself back, speak to people you trust. Do not quietly battle alone, it only slows us down and tear us all the more,” the 28 year-old said to an auditorium full of students, who sat listening in absolute silence.
“In silence, denial and shame, we only give courage to sexual predators. Remember that you are not the only victim that the predator is after and you will definitely not be the last,” Vashum said. She confessed that there had been moments in her life when she jumped at every slight touch, and froze when she saw her abusers or heard voices resembling theirs. “It is as though there is no such thing called courage. The journey is long and hard. I’m still fighting my fears. But we need to start from somewhere. We need to start now,” she asserted.
Vashum also highlighted the difficulty in having to start talking about sexual abuse in a small community where people tend to be judgmental. This again victimises the victim even more and leaves the affected family vulnerable.
Expressing deep concern that many families continue to close their doors on the issue, she stressed on the need to talk about awareness and prevention of sexual abuse. Vashum said forgiving herself and the perpetrators and taking a stand to spread awareness on the silent epidemic helps her in healing.
“It is slow but it is effective...to all of you seeking courage and hope, remember that we are fighters and survivors and never victims. May everyone have the courage to listen, to believe and help. So that together we can help others heal. The decision to fight silence begins with you and me,” she added.
Vashum read out a few of her poems including one titled ‘Battle of the Mind’ in which she talks about forgiveness being the only way to winning the battle of a scarred mind, and finding peace.
Yuimi Vashum’s book ‘Love. Lust. And Loyalty’ talks about coping with sexual abuse as a kid, and seeks to speak for children who have had to endure abuse in silence. According to the publisher, PenThrill, the book also serves as an awareness tool for parents. At the same time, it emphasizes that when victims overcome shame, they are just like everyone else—entitled to love, lust and life.
The book will be released on May 22 at Hiyo Cafe in Dimapur.
Vashum’s writings can be found at www.yuimivashum.com. She is currently said to be working on starting a learning centre in her home town Ukhrul, in Manipur.
