Thread by @Sam_Leig

#WhyIDidntReport Because I was 4 years old and I thought that I was the only one who was going through this. I felt dirty, a sinner and somehow responsible of what was happening to me. This is the first time in my life that I have been so public about my own story. 1/10

It breaks my heart to read many of your tweets and find out the different situations in which we were abused and who were the people who abused us. Little is said about the abusers themselves. What takes someone to subdue an individual to nurture of their confidence? 2/10

Why somebody wants to harm us when the only thing we are doing is trying to live our lives? Why someone abuse others to feel emboldened? Do they have a mental illness? Why some people find appealing to bully others? 3/10
mentalhelp.net/articles/why-d…

The answer to some of these questions might explain why there are people out there ridiculing our experience now. Recognising that abuse in general is a problem forces society to come up with the solution. This is the first step. 4/10

These tweets highlight a wider problem in which the abuse is the tip of a nasty iceberg. What are the actions that we as an individuals and victims can take to help sorting the abuse problem? 5/10

Politics entwines with different aspect of our lives because it is the lawmaker’s role to pass legislation to protect their constituents. UK, for example, recently passed a legislation about ‘upskirting’ to protect the victims of this crime. 6/10
nytimes.com/2018/06/15/wor…

Feeling abused does not necessarily mean that the abused underwent to many years of abuse. The feeling of impotence is felt whether the victim was touched or not. UK lawmakers came to that understanding. 7/10

This hashtag was born due to the political environment in the United States but this problem is far from being exclusive of the US. I have read two entries who were not written in English; one was in Dutch and the other one was in Japanese. 8/10

Sexual abuse comes from people of all walks of life; there is no distinction of religion, age (elderly people are sexually abused), social status or location. Some of us might have written our tweets in English but that does not necessarily mean that we live in the US. 9/10

This is exactly why being in some degree involved in politics is important and why it is our duty to cast our vote if we really want to push changes in the way we are addressing these issues. /end