Translator: Amman Abid Reviewer: Peter van de Ven
Could everyone close their eyes.
Please, it's so important.
Everyone close their eyes.
Picture this.
It's the third night that I'm sitting in my car
with my children and nowhere to go,
outside McDonalds in Streatham.
Gabby, my baby, says to me, "Mummy, why are we here?"
I said, "We'll be the first ones up to get breakfast tomorrow, don't worry."
(Sigh)
Nowhere to go,
in my car with my children,
heavily pregnant.
What am I going to do?
Open your eyes.
How I got here: my partner.
The abuse, the hitting, the hurting, the pain.
One day my daughter --
I looked at my daughter's eyes,
I looked at Louise's eyes, and she had fear.
I'd never seen that fear before.
She was just about to open her mouth,
and then my ex-partner grabbed my daughter.
It wasn't his child.
I was not scared because I knew he would not hurt this child.
He's running around the house with her,
and I said to him, "Put her down!"
Louise is staring in shock.
Then he put Gabrielle down,
and then he picked up --
no, he put Sade down
-- I have six children --
he put Sade down,
and he picked up Gabrielle.
That's when my heart dropped.
Are there any mothers here?
Who is a mother here?
Can you imagine my heart?
My heart is in my mouth
as I knew that's his child,
and he said he can do whatever he wants with his child.
I was running.
My whole family was crying. We were screaming.
It was just awful.
He then took my daughter and put her by the window,
and I saw her feet dangling out of the window.
At that moment,
I just went onto my knees,
I went onto my knees and said:
"No, please! Don't throw my baby out of the window!
Please God, don't throw my baby!"
My belly, my heart and my head --
all different emotions went through me.
He looked at us.
He looked at all of us crying,
just begging not to hurt us or hurt my baby.
Then he just put her down and said,
"See? I wasn't going to hurt anyone. You lot, go to your rooms!"
At that moment, I knew I needed to get out.
Enough was enough.
I knew I had to get out.
That's why I found myself sitting in my car,
nowhere to go.
But my daughter told me the most horrendous thing
that a mother would never want to hear:
that she was sexually abused by my partner,
that he abused her.
The worst thing for me --
he hit me, he bullied me,
at times, I couldn't even think.
You know, I had to make sure I said the right things.
If he said something, I had to think about it first
because I didn't want to upset him.
So, I had no emotions.
But when my daughter told me that my ex-partner sexually abused her,
that was it.
I just couldn't believe it.
Because I knew how it felt,
because I was abused.
I knew the pain she went through because I went through it.
I was her mother, how could I not protect her?
How could I not see this?
Because I was being abused!
So, I decided to go to refuge.
Eventually, I went to refuge.
That was really hard for me because I'm quite a strong person,
I've had my own business, and I've done quite well,
and now I'm just on my face, in refuge with other women.
I didn't have my own space.
There was no rehabilitation. There was no help.
So, you know, I was there in refuge.
Finally, we left refuge, and I got my own place, which was great.
My daughter went through a long court case,
and we were one great united family.
I had my baby, and we were all happy.
My daughter had to go through this court case, I did not want her to go.
Anyway, he was was found guilty and received 10 years in prison.
The judge said it was the worst kind of child grooming he had ever seen.
Now my daughter is doing well.
She's lovely and goes out to tells her story, just like me.
She's a chef,
and all the rest of it is fine.
Anyway, my journey begins.
I'm in my place now, and I'm quite bored and depressed.
You know, I'm a very active person.
I used to go home, take my kids to school,
come home and watch TV.
That's all that I was doing, every single day.
I was so depressed that I started to self-medicate myself.
I thought: "I've got to get out of this depression, this is not me.
I am not going to stand here, and I'm not going to stay in this place."
So, I started to place affirmations around my house.
"You're more than a conqueror." "There's nothing you can't do."
Everywhere in my house there would be an affirmation.
In my underwear drawer, an affirmation: "You're beautiful."
Look in the bathroom: "You're strong."
Everywhere in my house, even today, you will find an affirmation.
I put one in my fridge the other day, and my daughter asked about it.
I said, "Don't worry about it."
(Laughter)
I went to this center, and someone asked,
"Do you want to start a parents group?"
I said, "OK. Fine, lovely. I will start a parents group."
I had nothing else better to do, so I decided to start a parents group.
I decided I didn't want this to be an ordinary single parents group.
I wanted to make it different.
I started an organization called STORM.
STORM stands for
support, trust, opportunity, rebuilding, motivation.
I started with four women, and now I work with over 2,000 women.
What we do is we empower women.
We get them onto courses.
We get them an education.
We get them to set up some business.
We do conferences.
It's just about empowering and helping women.
My ethos is "out of the darkness and into the light"
because I knew within myself,
I couldn't get the help at refuge.
I know a lot of women who go through domestic violence.
The ironic thing about it is that people think it's a poor man's disease.
That only people living in housing estates suffer domestic violence,
or people on benefits suffer domestic violence.
No, it isn't.
I've had a woman come to me whose husband is a police officer,
and she's going through domestic violence.
I knew a woman whose husband worked at a well-known newspaper,
she was going through domestic violence.
Domestic violence has no respect for person, color, or creed.
Domestic violence just happens.
It's a sudden thing, domestic violence.
You don't even know when it's happening.
Because when your abuser hits you and says sorry,
he'll say, "It's always your fault because you made me do that."
"Why did you make me do that?"
Or he may go out and buy you a present.
Or he might buy you flowers.
And you think, "Maybe, he's not that bad."
That's what domestic violence is.
I started this organization, and I've helped many women.
Many great women who go through domestic violence or sexual abuse.
There are so many of us out there.
Give a thought for other women or for a woman sitting on the road.
We're so British that when we see a woman crying in the street,
or people even crying, we just walk past them.
That was me, and people were walking past me.
Give a thought about other people.
Go and ask them, "Are you OK? Can I help you?"
The organization has grown so far, so great and so brilliant,
and we do so much good work at STORM.
that we're always looking for volunteers to come and help us.
And another thing --
I wanted to be a voice for the people who go through this.
I want to be the voice for them,
because a lot of people suffer in silence.
A lot of people go home, and they are scared to go home.
It got to a stage where I was scared to go home.
I would look at the window
and think, "What now?"
They're scared to go home.
Who would've thought 11 years ago
that me, Marie Hanson, dyslexic, sitting in my car --
and now, I'm a councilor for Wandsworth.
Who would've thought that could happen?
But it can happen.
Please do not suffer in silence.
Thank you very much.
(Applause)