When María Amarilla was eleven years old, she was sexually abused by a family member. “For years I remained silent because I didn’t know it was wrong and didn’t know who to talk to,” she told openDemocracy.
The abuse “lasted for a while, and when my school organised a spiritual retreat I tried to talk to someone, but everything the girls heard there was about our ‘sins’: the clothes we wore, the words we used. So I shut up.”
At the age of fifteen, Amarilla – who is now a spokesperson for the National Union of Student Centers of Paraguay – reported the abuse to police, “but trauma and psychological damage were still there. There’s no support from institutions.”
