Please Help Me Seek Justice For Regina

The Editor,

I am 13 years old. I saw him as a father. He clothed me, fed me, and schooled me.

As my father, I did not hesitate to do what he asked me to do like an obedient child, except those nights when he would touch me inappropriately. I flinched when his large hands would cover my upper chest. 

I felt helpless as his dominating adult body overwhelmed my small child’s body-frame. I turned my face, cried and then played dead to stop the pain.

He tells me to be “quiet like a good girl” and “this is our secret”; “don’t tell no one” as I lay there in pain and feeling confused. I am 13.

Should my father be doing this to me? Soon after my helpless body was touched and penetrated, I started to feel weak, tired and sick. I am 13.

I went to school and fainted. I knew something was wrong with me but who I tell when it seems like everyone is looking at me “funny.”

I was told that I am pregnant?” pregnant”?

What is that?

Quickly, I was removed from my home in the city and taken back to the village. I am surrounded by family but I am scared.

People are talking but I am scare. I keep my face down.

Who can I trust? Do they know what happened? As my belly slowly extrude for nine months, I am petrified. “

They say I was “bad girl!” 

I am beginning to think that I am. At night, I cried and feel anxious. I am afraid of how this thing is going to come out of me. I feel excruciating pain.

It is almost like the pain I felt before but worse. My tiny body has to push out a baby.

They tell me I had a baby, I am still in pain.  I am 13.

My body is not working like it used to; I am urinating and defecating uncontrollably as if my body can no longer take the pain.

Will this pain ever go away?  I am told not to talk like I was told before. I keep my face down.

I was betrayed. The big people failed me. Who can I trust to protect me? Can I trust you?

I am 13 years old, I am Regina, I am your daughter and one of countless of girls that are sexually abused every day in Liberia. 

Francien Chenoweth Richarddon,
[email protected]