Transcriber: Thanasis Zantrimas Reviewer: David DeRuwe
Did you know that there are 54 children’s rights
defined by the United Nations?
I wish I had known that as a child.
Those rights are in place because children
cannot stand up for themselves in times of need.
Sometimes it is really hard to know if a child needs help.
To spot a child in need in a closed-up community is even harder.
I know that because I was that child.
I believe that we should break open closed-up communities
to protect all children from hurt.
First, let me take you back to my childhood.
I grew up in a house pre-Internet and with one phone.
It had a lock on it and was kept in my mother’s room.
Radio and television were forbidden.
For example, pop culture was seen as “unkosher.”
All rooms apart from my room and the bathrooms were locked.
I wasn’t safe.
At times, I screamed my lungs out for help.
Yet, no one came.
I even begged to be placed out of the home. Yet no one did.
One day, I looked out of the window onto my garden,
and opposite my house, I saw my neighbors laughing, eating at candlelight,
playing the piano, singing, dancing, and decorating the Christmas tree.
I sat there in fear on the cold floor near my window for hours.
The contrast between the lights in my neighbors’ home and a dark in mine
couldn’t have been bigger.
“I am worth that kind of love too,” I thought.
“Someday life is going to get better.
They won’t break me.
I will be able to offer the finest to my children.
I will do something with this for others.”
Sure there were moments of love and enjoying art in my youth.
Sure, I grew up with enough toys and clothes,
but I didn’t care so much about material stuff anyway.
Sure, I lived in a safe and privileged neighborhood of Amsterdam,
yet I grew up isolated
and with a completely different set of rules.
Also, I was dealing with little to unhealthy nutrition,
and moreover, I was taking care
of my physically handicapped and mentally ill mother
as if being an adult servant instead of a child.
I was also dealing with severe forms of coercion,
for example, physical violence and different forms of mental violence.
Other forms of coercion were dogmas and brainwash of the community.
Slamming hands,
fists,
kicking legs,
a rolling pin,
and my mother’s crutches -
I’ve experienced it all.
If I was lucky, I could finally flee that home
and run to those warm arms of my neighbors.
I realize that these details of abuse might be not so easy for you to hear.
Know that I was able to build a life of my own
despite of where I come from.
Let me go on with some words that have had a huge impact
till today.
I would hear:
“You are the worst existence.
“Imashima,”
literally translated as “May her name be erased.”
“You will end up as a prostitute behind glass.
I will follow you wherever you go.
No one will believe you.”
Scared of honor crimes, I walked around with pepper spray until the age of 28.
See?
The invisible bruises ...
stay for a long time.
Let me also share an example of brainwash with you.
I would hear:
“We are right, and they are wrong” and “There’s only one true path.”
Or at school, I would hear this dogma:
“Every time a woman uncovers parts of her body that should stay covered,
one of us gets killed.”
At 16, I was sent to this ultraorthodox neighborhood in New York
to be placed back on the righteous path.
I was on my way to not finishing my high school, not receiving a diploma,
and to be married off.
Forced and arranged marriages
are one of the most well-known, harmful traditional practices worldwide.
It was around that time
that I started to work on leaving the closed-up community.
Meanwhile, some stuff of mine got destroyed or taken away
Like the main character in the movie, “The Shawshank Redemption,”
I had to plan my exodus from that house with patience and precision.
Fast forward.
I can assure you
that we all have the potential to heal fully from everything
that was done to us and to forgive.
If we open up to the path of personal growth and do the work,
we can make it on our own,
though we do need at least one grown-up to truly see us
as a child to make it.
You could be that grown-up.
The story - the misfortune of my story, though,
is that I don’t have biological children due to my past.
As a teenager, I was refused access to contraception
to regulate this women’s condition called endometriosis.
Contraception was seen as forbidden sex,
and even prostitution.
The consequences of that decision are irreversible.
However,
childlessness as in “May her name be erased?”
No.
I am here.
Today, my family members are not the ones who are connected to me biologically,
but the ones who are there for me unconditionally
and love me exactly for who I am.
And those Christmas lights,
they shine bright on my balcony, all year long.
What happened to me is not an exception.
Different forms of child abuse happen outside closed-up communities as well,
but when those cases come to light,
at least they rarely will be kept from current laws.
Harmful traditional practices take place in union
with the collective ideologies within a closed-up community.
Basically, there’s nothing wrong with traditions in themselves;
however, they will be harmful
if they interfere with children’s and human’s rights.
So,
we’ve got to rethink our communal lives,
we’ve got to reboot the way communities are structured,
we’ve got to know that there is always something that we can do,
and we’ve got to act, especially to protect children -
all children.
It is time for the next level global civilization
with humanity, integrity, and grace.
We need some vital tools to unchain us from harmful patterns
such as hiding matters or looking away -
patterns that can be found in each and every closed-up community
worldwide till today,
harmful patterns that get passed on from one generation to the next.
To see the patterns ...
is to see the solutions.
I'm going to be honest with you.
There are no quick fixes, yet I do see possibilities for change.
We can start by breaking taboos much more.
Because we don’t talk -
not in closed-up communities,
not enough in society,
and especially not in the business world.
And when we talk, oftentimes we meet this attitude
of “Are you okay?
Can you have endured all of that and still be that happy and sane?
There must be something wrong with you.”
or “Why would you share all of that and risk your status in society?”
I believe that there are no taboos
and that speaking up is a great strength and duty,
because shared knowledge will prevent future forms of coercion.
To governmental bodies:
You can support children who want to live differently,
or leave the closed-up communities to do so safely.
Oftentimes, those children will be worked against
or influenced to stay or return.
Besides, previous members of the closed-up community
who know the culture and codes can consult in educational programs,
and moreover, we have integration courses,
but why haven’t we implemented mandatory courses
to check that the laws are being kept in closed-up communities?
To closed-up communities:
We need courageous people from within your community to demand change
in order to keep that shared identity.
You who dare to speak up and can withstand pressure of others;
you who can be clear unapologetic about human rights,
hate speech, and the exclusion of people;
you who can hold a safe space in order for conversations to continue -
you can be an ally.
And to all of us:
I believe that children belong to all of us.
Children from closed-up communities
get abused in our streets and neighborhoods.
It’s closer than you think.
So allow your children to play with children from closed-up communities,
give children in need a roof over their heads,
dare to protect children if you feel that they’re not safe,
and make that phone call to the specialized organization
so they can intervene.
However small your action may seem,
for a child in need,
it may very well be a lifeline.
Your tiny intervention
can break that harmful chain.
If people want to step out of the shadows of their lives
and turn their faces towards the sun,
carry them.