The only indication that something wrong was going on was how quickly everything stopped when someone walked in, and how he told me to not tell anyone.
I used to always listen to him because he was older than me.
The more I thought about it, the less normal it felt.
I told mama when I was in the fourth grade: “He touches my breasts and my behind, and sometimes, he takes off his pants. Is that normal?"

They told me it was a game.
A game that everyone played.
They wanted to see who was the best one at it.
I was very naive.
Day after day, we’d go into the room and they’d choose one of us to “play” with.
Day after day, we explored each other through this game.
Day after day, I’d enter the apartment with excitement to start playing the game.

My father was the first person to touch me.
I used to tell myself that I was imagining it.
When he’d touch me with his leg from behind,
I’d tell myself he was just being playful.

He molested a girl in second grade.
I didn’t understand and couldn’t fathom what was happening.
I only knew that I was very mad.
But I didn’t say anything.
He was my English teacher.

There was an uproar on Facebook a while back over the group rape of children at a school.
The children were forcefully gathered and put together in one place.
It’s said that they were put on the roof once, and in the school theatre another time.
There were a lot of rumors surrounding the incident,
So it wasn’t clear what exactly happened. 

The harasser was a math teacher at our school. He was a very good teacher. Always smiling and nice. Always joking around. Everyone loved him, including me.
I was eleven, and there was nothing special about me. He ruined me.

I’ve been subjected to bad things ever since I was a child.
It started with the bullying I’d get at school,
Because of my thin body and dark skin.

An elderly man was standing in line behind me. He was wearing a white jalabiyah. He had a thin beard.
He placed a hand on each of my shoulders. He gripped them tightly and pressed his penis against my behind.
gender violence, sexual violence, child molestation, the street

I am a 23-year-old guy.
I come from a well-known family.
I graduated a year ago from business school.
From the moment I was born,
My life has been full of suffering.
My father was very harsh on me and my siblings,
But I was almost the only one affected by his cruelty.
He used to beat me over the smallest mistakes.
He used to humiliate me,
Call me names in front of people,
And degrade me in front of my friends.

I was eight years old.
I was playing in the streets,
Where a sixty year old man used to sell honey.
He would get us honey every month.
That time there was no one at home.