Alberta woman taken hostage in Somalia speaks out about sex abuse

[Coofle]

CALGARY—As she was driving to a rally to raise awareness about violence against women, Amanda Lindhout started to have doubts about her plan to speak publicly for the first time about how she had been raped and tortured while being held captive in Somalia.

 

“I just didn’t know if I was going to have the courage to do it,” she said Friday.

 

“Those are words that I have never said in public before, that I have said only in the confines of my therapist’s office and with close friends and family. So for me, just like for any woman that has experienced this kind of abuse, to stand in front of people and say that publicly and really own that experience was extremely difficult for me to do.”

 

But buoyed by a feeling of safety at the One Billion Rising event in Calgary, the 31-year-old writer and activist who hails from Red Deer, Alta., and now lives in Canmore, Alta., chose to reveal the repeated sexual attacks that she suffered during her captivity with the aim of showing solidarity with others dealing with the same issues.

http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2013/02/16/alberta_woman_taken_hostage_in_somalia_speaks_out_about_sex_abuse.html