Seeking Survivors of Sexual Violence!
- Deanna Leah
- Oct 24, 2016
- 4 min read
Dear Freedom Fighters,
I hope all of you are doing well and that I find you still going strong in your part in this fight, whether that be going to school, working outreach, or supporting organizations and people around the globe that do incredible work with the men, women and children who are enslaved today.
Recently I have been considering my goals as a writer and if you view my page on this website called "my goals" you will find that one of them is "that one day the voice against this industry will be LOUD and that it will include the voices of those that have been silenced for so long". I have also been in a number of classes, one specifically about refugee advocacy and one about abnormal psychology where I have learned about something called narrative therapy in which an individual who has experienced some kind of lasting trauma - war or sexual violence for example - is given the chance to tell their story in their own way, in their own time. This has proven to be extremely successful, especially in refugee situations or in trauma situations that were recurrent over long periods of time. In fact it has an 82% success rate and a number of refugees that have gone through the program I have begun training with said that the reason why it worked was that it allowed three things to happen.
1. It gave the thing that happened to them a purpose outside of themselves - meaning it could educate and help someone else and change the overall discussion surrounding the issue at hand.
This method of healing has been proven by the Faces and Voices of Recovery movement in which addicts in long term recovery are given the tools to talk about their recovery in a way that is not only empowering to them, but a way to teach people who don't understand what it is really like. Many people in this movement have said that the only reason they have not relapsed is because they are helping other people stay in recovery, or because they are a voice advocating for correct dialogue about the issue to be used throughout the country and the world.
2. It allowed them to put the event into the perspective of their past and their future - helping them to see that it is not who they are, nor their fault, but rather something that happened to them that they have made it through because they are a resilient individual.
3. It takes the dialogue away from the thing that happened to them - or in the case of sexual violence - it takes the voice away from their attacker and gives it back to them, which is extremely empowering for someone who may feel like they've lost it all and there is nothing they can do about it.
I found that this type of healing made a lot of sense to me and that it is necessary, not just for the healing of the individual, but the healing of the society which allowed the atrocity to occur in the first place. The dialogue and discussion surrounding rape culture, sex trafficking and prostitution needs to come to an end and be replaced with a form of discussion that will stop blaming the victim, convict the criminal and raise up a generation that thinks about the situation as it really is instead of a generation that either throws hate or calls sexual exploitation glamorous.
My hope is that I will be able to provide some survivors - some women who have gone through any kind of sexual violence, whether it be trafficking, rape, intimate partner violence or child sexual abuse - the healing that narrative therapy can provide through giving any woman willing to come forward with her story a medium through which it can be told. You don't have to know how to write it, you don't have to know the name of the person that tried to victimize you and tried to tear you apart, you just have to know how what you went through changed your life, you just have to know how you want the world to change and I think all of you have some idea of what you want to be different. Maybe you don't want another girl to have to grow up the way that you did, maybe you don't want another cousin or uncle or boyfriend to evade imprisonment, maybe you are sick and tired of men thinking they are entitled to "grab you by the pussy" simply because you have one. Whatever it is you experienced, however long ago it happened, whether or not it is still happening, all I want to do is give you the chance to be seen as the strong, resilient survivor that you are. All I want to do is give your story the chance to shine against the darkness.
What I am hoping to do is write a book called The Voice of Sparrows filled with 5-10 stories about women's experience with sexual violence, what they want people to know about them as a survivor and how they have changed because of another's attempt to victimize them. I want women to come out of the woodwork who are ready to stand strong and either meet me in person, or talk with me over skype for 20-30 minutes for a detailed recorded interview so that I can write a narrative non-fiction piece that will change the worlds view of these crimes, the criminals and the survivors that have lived through it.
I know that this is a difficult topic, but I also know that silence is deadly, not just for all who have experienced this vast injustice, but for the societies that continue to allow it to happen. I hope you will speak up and I hope you can believe in your own voice again.
God bless you all,
Deanna Leah
P.S. To contact me about this opportunity please email me at cookd96@unm.edu
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