Azura Mohamed Noor knows she is putting a lot at stake by what she is doing. Among other things, she risks stigma and discrimination and may have problems finding a life partner.
But the call operator, 24, is determined to go public as a rape victim.
"I am opening up a very old wound. But I want to help other girls who have gone through and are going through what happened to me and and I don't want society to judge us," she told The Sunday Times.
She was scheduled to go public at the We Can! Arts Festival at 3pm Sunday at the Aliwal Arts Centre in Aliwal Street. The event is part of a campaign organised by women's group Aware to trigger change in social attitudes towards violence.
Interviewed at the Aware Centre in Dover Road, soft-spoken Ms Azura said she was raped repeatedly in her home by a family friend when she was 15.
"He threatened to harm my family if I didn't do what he wanted or if I told anybody. I was so afraid," said the youngest of three children of a former shopkeeper and a cleaner who divorced five years ago.
The abuse turned the teenager's life topsy-turvy. She went into depression, became suicidal, started hurting herself, was admitted to the Institute of Mental Health (IMH) and sent to a girls' home for five years.
"There was a lot of hate for my attacker but I learnt to forgive and accept whatever happened to me because if I didn't, I would not be able to move on," she said quietly.
Miss Azura grew up in her family's four-room flat in Boon Lay.
Trouble started in her early teens when her father's business failed and he became a bankrupt.
Her mother went to work as a cleaner and befriended a male colleague, a foreign worker who often visited their home and sometimes stayed over.
"He seemed like a nice guy. Once in a while, he would say some religious thing and tell my mother and me to pray," she recalled.
But one night he entered her room while the rest of the family members were asleep and started touching her. "I tried to push him away but he started to threaten me very quietly. I just kept quiet, I didn't know what to do. I was so afraid," she said.
God will bless you with a good husband and loving family of your own.
Typical simplistic and insensitive mindset reflective of those who are actually unable to deal with such a situation. Hence they only know how to respond negatively to the victim. Just remember. When it happens to yourself, then you will get to know the deep-seated anguish and trauma these victims feel.
Azura, I read a saying once "No friend of yours will demand your silence". So don't be discouraged. What this society actually needs is for more brave gals like you to speak up and not cover up or gloss over rape cases as just a statistic. Then more can be done to shame/punish/deter culprits.
By sharing your story, you have comforted many victims in knowing they are not .....