Every woman in my immediate family has suffered abuse

My daughter, Jessica* was first catcalled at the age of 12. 

The culprits were workmen on a building site. When she called to tell me what had happened, I was angry and hurt; but beyond both, I was in disbelief that my little girl was already being sexually harassed.

A few years later, she was approached by a grown man who came on to her while she was looking through lip gloss in the make-up aisle at Superdrug.

Aged 15, she was raped.

This time the assailant was a boy who was her age – he was also her first kiss – and when she told me, I felt so guilty.

I had failed to protect her. I felt responsible, hurt, confused, angry and sad.

But that wasn’t the end of it.

At 16, my daughter was sexually assaulted in a shop by the owner.

The police report was filed on the same day, but it took the officers more than three months to attend the premises and check CCTV. After a shambolic investigation, lack of evidence meant he was not charged.

I feel so much pain recounting all of this, but I cannot stop or keep quiet. To see my daughter, who is not yet 18, going through these experiences breaks my heart – and I know firsthand how sexual abuse changes you, because my daughter is the third generation of women in my family to experience it.

This Is Not Right

On November 25, 2024 Metro launched This Is Not Right, a campaign to address the relentless epidemic of violence against women.

With the help of our partners at Women's Aid, This Is Not Right aims to shine a light on the sheer scale of this national emergency.

You can find more articles here, and if you want to share your story with us, you can send us an email at [email protected].

Read more:

Introducing This Is Not Right: Metro's year-long violence against women campaign Remembering the women killed by men in 2024

I was first sexually assaulted when I was 10. I was coming home from school when a strange man came through the front door of our building and grabbed me in the hall. I froze.

He pulled my tights and knickers down and started touching me. When he tried to carry me down the stairs to the cellars, my voice broke through with a scream. He put me down, put his finger on his lips to tell me to keep quiet, and left.

The only person I told at the time was my older sister. When I worked up the courage to tell my parents a year later, my stepmum looked me up and down and blamed me by saying ‘Well, look what you’re wearing.’

I still remember my outfit that day: a black denim skirt going just above my knees.

My dad was in shock, unable to understand why I had not told him at the time.

I was then raped on my 16th birthday by a ‘friend’, who only stopped when I pretended to be dead, because fighting him off and repeatedly saying ‘no’ hadn’t worked.

I didn’t tell anyone until years later. Instead, I blocked any kind of emotions relating to those days and carried the shame, guilt, and self-loathing.

My mother’s story is similar to my own.

Just a year ago my dad told me that she had been raped as a young woman in the 80s. I would have been about six months old when that happened, but I know how much that experience changed her: she became depressed, left home believing we would be better off without her and disappeared for years, choosing alcohol as her companion.

My parents separated when I was one, and eventually divorced before I was four years old. I met my mum again eight years later, when I was 12.

She died when she was 41 years old.

My mum’s passing left me feeling angry and sad for many years. In my mind, her death could have been completely preventable with the right support. When my dad told me about her rape, I understood then why it took him all this time to tell me. He had also felt that he had let her down at the time, by judging her when she told him.

I feel so sad that the narrative around sexual violence has barely changed since my mother’s generation.

People still feel so uncomfortable talking about sexual abuse, or are quick to victim-blame and dismiss it. This has happened to both myself and my daughter, with family members suggesting we ‘just let it go’, questioning why my daughter was out by herself when she was sexually assaulted while shopping, and not with a friend.

When my daughter was catcalled at 13, I complained to the company that ran the building site and, after a review of the CCTV, the two individuals responsible lost their jobs. It felt like a victory.

But both my daughter and I have lost friends and distanced ourselves from family members who have proven themselves unable to genuinely support us in our fight for justice.

And as of March 2025, 6.3 million women have been raped or sexually assaulted since the age of 16; while in 2024, fewer than three in 100 recorded rape cases resulted in a charge in the same year.

It is the biggest but quietest miscarriage of justice, a worldwide pandemic that still has so much stigma attached.

It’s soul crushing to see how my daughter’s abusers have been able to walk off, free to carry on with their lives while she, as a child still, has to work hard to regain her confidence, her joy and her trust in others.

Over the years, different kinds of therapy have helped me regain my self worth – but I refuse to be silent about what happened to me and my family.

My mum never had a chance to talk about what happened to her, and she is such an important part of who I am that I owe it to her, as well as myself.

I speak out for my daughter so that she knows how proud I am of her for fighting against the patriarchy – she has never shied away from speaking loud and clear when she sees abuse.

Finally, I speak out for all the women and girls who deserve to live in a world where they are free from abuse. Women deserve the same right as men to feel safe.

For too many of us, that feels impossible.

*Name has been changed

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