translated from Spanish: Alba Calderón, Mexican journalist rejected by her family for reporting sexual abuse committed by her father

Faced to his father and his family stopped talking because at first they believed him. However his mother then managed to confess to his abuses who then was his partner. “Alba doesn’t lie, she’s telling the truth. His dad is a rapist, “he tells BBC World on the phone from Monterrey, Nuevo León, where the family lives.
Calderon also learned that at least two other girls had been sexually abused by their father. And some memories make her think she may have been her victim too.

BBC World contacted his father, who evaded the issue.
“I don’t remember that situation. I’d rather forget. I hope Alba will recover and have a better life. He doesn’t want to talk to me and he’s estranged from his brothers. I don’t know what you’re looking for. The family has suffered a lot, we are all separated, “he says to BBC world on the phone.
This is the story of Alba Calderón told in the first person.
A cousin came to me to tell me that my father raped her when she was 4 years old.
It was December 2016 and this revelation changed my life. I broke my heart and so far I live in a state of post-trauma. That feeling like the world is coming at you.
When I heard the first thing I did was go to Monterrey, Nuevo León, in northern Mexico, where my family lives.
I quoted my mom and my brothers to tell them. Then we all went together to confront my father. He denied the accusation, but later confessed the truth to my mother.
My family believed him and ended up corriéndome the house. My brothers haven’t spoken to me so far, they’ve excluded me.
Then they knew the truth, but they decided to ignore it. Now, all you can do is ignore me, repudiate me.
I don’t stop crying. That day began for me a excruciating process that lasts until today.
Remembering I realized that a breakup of my family when I was 15 was because another of my cousins had also accused my father of raping her when I was 5 years old.

They didn’t believe him.
I talked to her about that abuse, which had been buried in the family. She confirmed that my father, in addition to abusing her, threatened that no one would believe him if he told the truth.
Another neighbor had accused him of making touches as a child.
My world came over me. For me until then my father represented love, honesty. Then I realized I was just faking that.
Then I entered a very large doubt. I wanted to know if my father had also abused me.
In Mexico cases of sexual abuse to minors are common. 9.4% of women in Mexico suffered sexual abuse in childhood, according to the National Survey on the Dynamics of relations in households 2016, National Institute of Statistics and Geography (INEGI).
In those cases, in 20.1% the perpetrator was an uncle. In 5.8% the father.

The memories were coming
For a whole year I had a very big blockade, I couldn’t remember anything.
It was until December 2017, when my grandmother died in a period of much pain and I spent in Monterrey, near my family, that the memories were coming.
First I remembered something I thought was a nightmare.
I saw something I identified as an elephant and I was very distraught.
I called my father’s younger brother and he told me that in the room where they lived when they were little, things had happened. That once they put a penis in his mouth while he was sleeping.
At that moment I knew that the “Elephant’s nightmare” was actually a souvenir: it was my dad masturbating in front of me.
I also remembered that one night he got naked in my bed.
When I demanded, he said it was because I was afraid. But I think he tried to abuse me too. Anyway, I am certain that he did not respect me and that I did not see myself as the girl who should love and care.
Prescribed crime
I tried to expose my father to the authorities.
But it was impossible because the crime of paedophilia in Nuevo León prescribes at age 10. It’s been over.
I realized that the only thing left was to vent the case publicly.
Although many have not cared to know the truth, for me there was no other option but to face it.
I do it more as a personal vindication and a recognition of my history. To say calm a little all this pain, to know that I am not complicit in this shame.
My dad’s a pedophile who raped two of my cousins. If it were not enough, my family excluded me when I accused.
It is important that we start talking about what hurts us, we are concerned, especially women. It’s a first step.
For me it represented a relief. Besides, I had no other way to face it.
I’m a journalist who covers these issues. And that makes me think, if this is so hard for me, how will it be for women who never hear, who have to mourn their pain in the street, with two children, who continue to rape every day?

But justice is still far away.
Right now, who’s going to keep something from that gentleman, who can stop me from abusing another girl again?
He’s my dad, but he’s a man I totally don’t know about. I don’t believe in him or what he says.
I can’t deny that I still feel love for him.
Much of the difficulty in dealing with this situation has been to accommodate my feelings. I am very angry with him, but at the same time there is a part of me that loves him and I can’t help it. I can’t find a way to separate the oil from the sea.
I don’t want to hear from him again. I wouldn’t trust any girl, or any woman.
“Women are worth less”
In all this process of seeking justice, of knowing other cases of sexual abuse and accompanying other women, I have found that women are worth less. It’s worth raping and killing us and nothing happens.

The laws are not in our favor, they do not prevent this from happening again.
For one circumstance or another, the police, the expert, the judges, dismiss your word for being a woman.
How do I imagine justice?
First my father recognized what he did. And then, some way of guaranteeing that he won’t do it again.
To see the size of their actions. To take responsibility for them and the pain it caused. But how? His word is misplaced. He’d have Quequedar in jail the rest of his days.
“Fall in Feminism”
Feminism became my refuge. I think if I hadn’t gone through this process so hard I wouldn’t have embraced this movement so quickly.

Some people tell me I’m a “hate-men” or I’m traumatized by what happened to my dad.
The history of my family is part of a misogynist and sexist culture, in which women are valued less.
“Social Exclusion”
Having spoken openly of my father’s abuses had a very high cost to me.
When I sought legal help the first thing they said was, “are you sure that’s what you want to do, smash your family?”
We complained and socially excluded. It’s a method of repression to shut up. Because if you don’t shut up, you’re not the perfect victim.
Once a woman denounces a harassment, she starts a derision that doesn’t end.
It also cost me my family to exclude me. My brothers still don’t talk to me and with my mother I have a difficult relationship.
Other groups of friends and acquaintances have stopped me from frequenting.
I still don’t know how to handle many things. I was left to invite many parts because I talked a lot about the subject. From other places I myself was excluded, because I weigh that machismo is reproduced everywhere.
“Shared Pain”
But, despite everything that has hurt and still hurts, I will always prefer to know the truth. I prefer a thousand times the truth to keep making me a dumb. To continue to perpetuate this painful system in which many other women have suffered.

In this process he has continued to know of my father’s abuses, I began to recognize the pain of other women.
For example, I realized that my mother and grandmother were involved in this unbearable pain dynamic without even being able to complain.
Before my maternal grandmother died, she said: “Mijita, thank God you had a brother who respected you.”
I realized that I came from women who used their whole life as an object, as a service. I now use his strength, his example and his love, to survive. But I hope to change somehow this for others who come, for myself.
My mother didn’t want to realize what was going on. He didn’t notice. I don’t know exactly what happened to him.

But after I talked about the case publicly, she managed to get my father to confess the truth. It was then that he separated from him.
They call Me “Feminazi” for being willing to denounce. But I’m not going to stop talking about femicide, about denouncing the abusers.
Everybody wants to leave this behind. But I’m not. He’s not back yet. ‘S going on. Thousands of girls and women continue to be abused. We need to take care of this.
In this society men use sex as an act of dominion over women.
It is necessary to name the pains. It’s a very hard process to recognize abuse. Or see another woman’s. It’s a shared pain.
Maybe they didn’t rape you. But your best friend, your mom, your sister, your grandmother…. Sure you know someone, how is it not going to hurt?
I’m not going to stop talking about it. The rotten is still here, everywhere.

Original source in Spanish

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