On Sexual Violence
A personal account

We were approached by a young woman who offered us the following account, suggesting we publish it. The local press, she explained, only dealt with testimonies whose authors gave up their anonymity, which she wasn't prepared to do. Rape and sexual abuse are topics that have yet to find their way into the public sphere in Iran. The internet, and its highly ambiguous legal status, may make it easier to take some first steps in the near future.


It's been years that I've wanted to talk, that I've wanted to cry, and that I've wanted to make him pay for what he did to me. I did talk and cry, but I did it so quietly that one would think I was the one who was guilty. And if I had talked, I would have indeed been guilty, for I would have ruined many things without getting anything back in return. I felt like a complete loser. I carried this load with me during all these years, and I paid a heavy price for it.

But now I think is the right time to start talking about these problems, which exist all around us in our sick society, in which there's no way to help those that are trying to emerge from the deep darkness of being physically and mentally abused.

It happened one evening, a Saturday evening, of which I'll never forget a single detail. My professor had asked me to help him in his office, together with his team, to finish a project, and I went there happy to find a good new job. I was there right on time, but I was surprised to find him alone, without his team. And it happened in that new, unfinished building, where nobody could hear those helpless cries as I was raped by that wild animal. Then I went completely out of breath.

After getting myself back into a state in which I could think, I realized that there was no way, no place and nobody that could help. Nothing at all. I couldn't even begin to think about telling my parents, because if your country denies you your rights, whatever people will try to do for you, they'll only hurt themselves. I didn't feel like sharing the tragedy with them.

Nor did I want to tell my boyfriend, because I knew that he wouldn't react well, I wasn't even sure he wouldn't go and kill someone. I didn't want him to commit a crime and ruin his life because of something that had happened to me.

I certainly couldn't go to the law, because in these cases, they say that being alone with my professor, in that place and time, makes it my own fault. For the law, I'm only half a person. And without any witnesses, it's impossible to prove my statement.

So I had to get along alone. It was so hard, I was losing my mind. I started hating men, I couldn't even bear a simple touch. I started having horrible nightmares. But I had a friend who could at least listen to me, and at whose house I stayed over for a while. I also started smoking.

When my behaviour and my new habits made my boyfriend leave me, even then, I didn't tell him a word of what had happened to me. He broke off our relationship because he believed I'd been cheating on him. This has always been unbearable to me, and after nine months I broke down and told him everything, but he didn't believe a word of it. He thought it was a silly lie to win him back.

This is what I was, and I know I'm one of millions, some of whom have never even talked, or who, if they talked, were only labelled "dishonourable". I don't only look at it as a personal problem any more. We need rights.

Why do we never hear stories of this kind? Does the government want to say they don't exist in our country? How long until they'll at least let people know about the everyday cases that are happening. We have the right to know the rates of rape and sexual abuse. We need a committee of specialists - including lawyers and psychologists - and volunteers, to take care of the abused, help them overcome their problem and support them in court. We have to inform people, so they may consider abuse as a serious crime, and not as an error on the part of the abused. And to react to the problem logically, and not with superstition.

Back to top