Do you understand the real meaning of the word “rape”?
In my case, I understood the real meaning of this word still very small,
still a child,
and, from this discovery,
I began to transform my pain not only into struggle,
as well as a tool to help other women
who sometimes do not even know they have suffered such abuse.
I am a resident of the suburb of Rio de Janeiro
and I identify myself as a feminist,
two facts that do not usually walk very close together,
if you understand that I spent most of my life as a suburban resident
and away from the privileges that the Carioca elite usually enjoy,
one of them is the gender inequality debate.
But my identification as a feminist
came a lot from the inspiration in my mother’s story.
My mother left a small town in the backlands of Pernambuco,
a town called Lajedo,
daughter of a couple who had 12 children
and went to Rio de Janeiro to try a better quality of life,
but it was not all flowers to her.
In fact, they were much more thorns than flowers.
Upon arriving in the wonderful city, she came across many difficulties
and when she was 21, I was born.
It was at this moment that my mother found herself alone,
with a newborn daughter on her lap and nowhere to sleep.
We spent many of our nights on a pew bench.
During the day my mother worked as a maid,
in the house of some madames,
and at night we would return to the pew,
where we spent the night;
I, in her bosom,
and she awake trying to protect me from something bad happening to me.
It was like this, with this trajectory of my mother,
That I learned that I should be strong.
and not let me down for any problem I suffered,
because I knew that, in the end, I would learn from those problems
and they would ripen me somehow.
In fact, my mother was able to build not only a roof for us,
but also was able to bring some of his brothers to Rio
to try to give a better quality of life to them.
With their arrival …
there were five brothers, two sisters and my grandmother …
the sad story could start to have a happy ending now,
but, in fact, it was only the beginning of the story.
We lived in a typical suburb house in Rio,
a house with a large yard, with many trees and many banana trees.
Damn banana trees,
because it was under those banana trees
that I discovered the real meaning of the word “rape.”
It was under those banana trees that three of my uncles touched me,
that three of my uncles sexually abused me,
memories that today I carry with great clarity and that hurt me,
but that, for most of my childhood and adolescence,
I repressed, I repressed and forgot about them,
somewhat as a defense mechanism.
These my uncles brought many problems to my mother, regardless of that,
and even without knowing what had happened under those banana trees,
she told them to go back to their hometown.
The years have passed, 14 years, to be more specific,
and one of those my uncles returned to Rio de Janeiro
and my mother, who always wanted to help the family a lot,
He received it in our house.
and put him to sleep in the room with me on the bed next to mine.
In my heart, I knew there was something wrong.
I knew that my relationship with him was not right,
I knew that something had happened,
but I had a feeling in my head that it was a nightmare,
I could not believe that anything could have really happened, in fact.
And, before going to sleep, he asks me a question.
He asks if I use contraceptive medication,
and I answer that not because in fact, at the time,
I did not use any medication.
And he says a phrase, a phrase that marks a break in my memory.
He says, “But when you were little, you were very naughty.”
And it’s in that moment that a trigger comes in my mind.
It is at that moment that I remember, with clarity,
of everything that happened under those banana trees.
Now everything made sense in my head.
and I despair because I am on the side of my aggressor.
Now I was sure
that I was sleeping in the bed next to my rapist.
I close my eyes and ask for help,
I ask for the protection of all supernatural powers,
so that nothing bad happens to me, and that’s how I get to sleep.
The day dawns, my room clears and I wake up.
When I wake up and turn to the side, I see him watching me,
with staring eyes, looks of who wants to snatch a prey,
and I get scared.
Immediately, I turn to the wall again
and I’m asking for nothing to happen to me, so that nothing happens to me,
that this is not real: “It is not real, it may not be able to do this …”,
but he is.
He climbs to my bed, he grabs me.
He holds me tightly in bed as he strokes my body.
And I try to have strength, I try to create forces inside of me,
to react to that.
Then I can get up, run
and in tears, to talk to my mother about everything that is happening.
My mother also feels overwhelmed, superferred,
because the brother she tried to help,
because she went to Rio de Janeiro to try to help the family,
now he was trying to rape his own daughter.
It’s a very difficult time, not only for me, but also for my mother.
From this, some of my attitudes have changed.
I started to act in a different way,
and my mother knew it was because of that trauma.
So she is very wise and decided to put me in a psychologist,
decided to seek the help of a psychologist to improve myself.
And, in fact, it was one of the best decisions my mother ever made in my life.
From this experience of sharing what I carried, that pain,
to share that memory of my three years, which only I knew,
it began to free me from that evil.
Each time I spoke with my psychologist,
with my family,
every time I talked to close friends,
It was setting me free.
and I felt that weight was not just mine anymore.
That’s how I started to realize how much publicly speaking about it,
how to make the debate about rape culture public was important,
because, every time we talk about it,
we can take care [of the fact] that this happens every day
and with people close to us.
It was at that moment that I began to understand myself
as a women’s rights activist,
because, even today, in Brazil,
every 11 minutes a woman is still raped.
These numbers are becoming even more scary
when we understand that only 10% of these women have the courage to report
and 70% of those numbers are kids and teens, just like me.
It is based on these figures that I can say that, in 2016,
in May of 2016, to be more specific, a case had great repercussion in the media,
which was the case of a collective rape
which happened in the western zone of Rio de Janeiro.
A 16 year old girl … 16 years …
was raped by 33 men … 33 men.
And it was when I met this case
that I and “Our” women,
an organization of which I was a member until then,
we feel very powerless about it.
We were already heavily mobilized for the cause.
We had just held the “Mobilized Women’s Circuit”,
which was a whole week, [the day] March 8,
carrying out propositional actions to discuss women’s right to the city.
We had just barred a bill in the Legislative Assembly,
which sought to criminalize abortion even more.
We were already debating this, but when we talked about rape,
We did not know what to do.
And this is what many of us feel:
“How can we stop more rapes from happening?
Because we understand that it is an act that happens
only between the rapist and the victim.
So how can I get out there and prevent this from happening?
In fact, it may be that I can not,
But what about the victim?
What can we do for the woman who has been raped? “
And that is how the “Welcome Map” is born.
It is based on my experience as a woman victim of sexual violence
and have sought help from a psychologist,
and all this treatment helped me overcome this evil,
helped me free myself from these ghosts and be able to be fighting for other women.
You understood my whole process.
that we have seen that other women have to go through this too,
need help from psychologists and therapists willing to serve them.
The Welcome Map is a project
which is based on helping other women.
Usually we use a phrase, which is: “No woman deserves to suffer alone.”
And this is so, no woman deserves to suffer alone.
Today, the Map of the Reception has about 3,000 volunteer women,
who are women who become available
to evaluate the public services of your city,
because the State also has a fundamental role
to take responsibility for these cases.
The State must play its part [in order to] support these women.
But while the state does not change, while these services do not work,
because in many cities they do not work,
the Host Map is there for this, to welcome these women.
Today, the Map is in 13 states;
in some cities, including here in Blumenau.
It’s about 476, if I’m not mistaken,
therapists who have volunteered to serve women victims,
and we have a band of almost 100 women
who are victims who have already registered and who are already receiving care.
I, myself, am one of them, that makes use of the Map of the Reception.
Just to reminisce:
even today, now, while I was speaking here,
a woman was raped.
These numbers continue.
The clock does not stop, and more women are being raped.
Is it now that, after my account,
Can you understand a little better?
What does the word “rape” mean?
If so, I want us to get out of here.
committed to trying to change some of the reality,
at least next to us,
and trying to change some of tomorrow,
try to make today to change the tomorrow of this reality.
Thanks.
(Applause) (Live)
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