Speaking Out About Child Sexual Abuse

Brut India

"I'm not ashamed of saying that 'Okay, I was abused.'" Lokesh Pawar is a survivor, and he wears that badge proudly to help others everywhere.

Transcript

00:00I was first sexually abused at the age of six, and it happened at several occasions,

00:06I think for the next seven to eight years.

00:20He would take me inside, manipulate me to go with him, and he would abuse me.

00:27He would ask me to perform oral sex on him.

00:29He would ask me to, he would penetrate me sexually, and he would do things to me that

00:35probably a six-year-old shouldn't be exposed to and harmed in a way that it just causes

00:39a lot of, I think, damage to the mind, to the head, to the body, to the soul.

00:59It just, it was a course that I knew that, okay, if he's coming to me, I exactly knew

01:09what was going to happen.

01:11It was a process that was built in my mind.

01:13When you practice something for a while, you sort of get into, grow into the skin of it.

01:19And you're doing this, and you start doing the same thing again and again, because you

01:22don't realize, because there's nobody telling you that, okay, this is not how it's to be

01:26done.

01:27There's another way that you should react to this.

01:28Whenever he would come to me, he would only normally start manipulating me into talks,

01:32tell me, you know what, can you just come, let's go to the bazaar, or let's go here and

01:35there, you know, come hang out with me.

01:38And that's how the process started.

01:39For me to understand for so many years that, okay, this is exactly what was happening with

01:43me, I had to bear a lot of it, come to a stage where I could see no examples of such things

01:53or such thought around me.

01:56And then realize that, okay, this is different, this is not common.

02:18I spoke with my parents first at age 19, 19 and a half, 19.

02:25Their first reaction was, they cried.

02:28And they cried for hours about it.

02:29So they apologized to me that they weren't and could not be there for me when probably

02:34I needed them the most.

02:37And above all, I think there was a great amount of angst, there was a great amount of anger

02:43within them as parents.

02:45And the day I spoke with my parents, I felt as if I'd done something really, really big.

02:51And I'd taken this huge weight off my shoulders.

02:56And that I felt very normal, I felt like, okay, I was fine.

03:02Above all, I think what made me feel fine about myself was the fact that my parents

03:06understood the depth and they understood that this was a real problem.

03:13There are cases where people, where parents deny it completely, or they are in denial

03:19of something like this.

03:21If you're watching this video as a parent, I think you should start having a conversation

03:25with your child.

03:26Make them believe that you can be trusted upon so that tomorrow, if your child is going

03:31through something like this, they can come to you and say that, okay, something happened

03:36with me.

03:37How do you think I should deal with it?

03:43I had read multiple stories about female abuse, female rape, female sexual abuse, and I was

04:13there, but I hadn't really read anything about male abuse.

04:17All I could relate with was the fact that the incidents, that the experiences were similar.

04:24What happened with a girl was exactly similar with what had happened with me.

04:30People who are abusers are living right around and they're probably, they're right with you

04:45somewhere that you probably, these are people that you know.

04:48These are people that have lived with you for years because they've monitored your behavior.

04:54They've monitored how you react to certain things.

04:56They've monitored who you love the most, who you trust the most, how you are with things,

05:00how you react.

05:01How a thief will monitor your movements to probably do what he wants to do is exactly

05:07how an abuser will also think and monitor your movements, your lifestyle, your life,

05:13your behavior to certain things, your character, and ultimately will take small steps to probably

05:20take the bigger ultimate step that he wants to take.

05:26I've been gifted with this life and I want to do something about it.

05:44I want to grow bigger and be proud of what I've done.

05:47I think that ambition has led me to be where I am and every single day that I was getting

05:53out of it to see myself getting closer to my ambition has helped me heal in many, many

06:01ways.

06:02And apart from that, I think the support that my family has given me, my brother, my mother

06:08and my father is beyond, I cannot, it's inexpressible, honestly, it's, I cannot even explain how

06:16nice it feels, how lucky I am.

06:40I wear it as a badge and I'm happy to wear it, I don't, I'm not ashamed of saying that,

06:44okay, I was abused because I don't think it's my fault.

06:49So why should I be ashamed about it?

06:51I'm not wrong.

06:53There was, there is no fault of mine in this at all.

06:56I think that is what we as victims and survivors need to be told, that it is not our fault

07:01because we always live in that shame that, okay, it's probably something's wrong with

07:04me and that it is not your mistake.

07:07And the world is a lot kinder than you think.

07:10There are people that will support you.

07:12And even if they do not support you, you can stand for yourself and you should stand for

07:16yourself because ultimately this is your fight.

07:19People will show light, people will show hope.

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