By Sophie Stephens | Digital Fundraiser
Content Warning- This contains themes of sexual violence.
Kushboo is a 17-year-old girl with severe learning difficulties. She lives with her family in very poor conditions, in a house made from mainly farm waste. Her father is the sole provider for the family and is a daily wage labourer.
They had a next-doorneighbour who would come round frequently, as he was friends with her father. He began to groom Kushboo, which eventually led to him raping her on various occasions. Due to her vulnerability and incapacity to comprehend what had taken place, he took advantage of this and asked that it was kept a secret between them.
What Kushboo didn’t know, was that she was pregnant. She began deteriorating, so her parents took her to the hospital to be examined, where they came to understand that she was pregnant. They had no idea how this could’ve happened.
News spread around their local village and not much support was given to Kushboo or her family.
But then, our project heard of Kushboo’s situation. And support did arrive. The case came to one of our project’s support workers in a women’s group. The member of staff reported it to the legal team and a lawyer contacted the family, to take it forward and seek justice for Kushboo.
With the help of the lawyer and the support team, the family began to receive local encouragement from the community. The importance of women’s rights was raised and discussed, as people were sensitized to this issue.
The offender is now in prison and Kushboo is receiving counselling services to help her process, as well as going into education for the first time. Whilst at the beginning her family were resistant to this, our project team tutored them on the benefits of education and how it could be life-changing for Kushboo.
Thanks to your vital support, violence against women is being addressed and women are receiving the legal help they need to seek justice.
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