One brutal moment, and a life is changed forever. At the age of six, Amira Birger was raped by a family member. A year later, another person began molesting her. In the moment of the first sexual assault, her innocence was destroyed and her perceived value as a person was ripped from her. The predatory attacks continued for nearly six years. At age nine, she was able to confide to her mother, but was not able to talk about the second person that was now violating her.
Kudos to the mother for believing her little girl, calling the police, and getting her into counseling. However, being interrogated at the police station brought on more trauma, and the counselor was not trained in sexual abuse. Key people didn’t recognize the symptoms and never asked what she was feeling or what was going on inside. Of course, there were no repercussions for the rapists. Consequently, Amira was not able to get the help and understanding and care that she desperately sought, and her life went into a dark and deep tailspin.
She began acting out in ways that seemed like pure rebelliousness to those around her:
- Wetting the bed
- Self injury
- Suicidal thoughts and attempts
- Tying her shirts up
- Stuffing her bra
- Doing poorly in school
- Not taking showers nor attending to personal hygiene
- Telling her parents she hated them
- Acting out sexually at a young age
To make matters worse, her parents divorced about this time, causing others to think the behavior was from Amira’s distress about the split. In reality, it was a direct result of the unfathomable angst and self-loathing she experienced because of the ongoing abuse. She felt so much shame and blamed herself for the humiliating and demeaning sexual violations that she unwittingly sought out destructive behaviors and relationships.
Abuse of children is rampant in our society, and to some degree, it is “acceptable”. Amira believes that even small measures of abuse and neglect “prime the pump” and condition children to accept the lies and manipulations of pimps and predators. This was certainly true in her case. She dropped out of school at 15 and left home. Even though she was working, she would go to drinking and drug parties, first trying a little pot, then moving up to meth. After about six months, the drugs had done their damage, and the teen was thin as a rail and her life was in shambles. She was able to check herself into a home for independent teens and began to thrive. Through the friendship of a woman 10 years her senior, Amira was further groomed into a relationship of trust and dependence. This woman eventually sold her to a pimp, and she was officially trafficked at age 16, although she wouldn’t know the term for another decade.
See video of Amira’s testimony about drug use
First, the pimp took Amira to men’s homes.
The most horrific thing that happened to me was sitting with the pimp at his home while he was helping his kids with homework. He and his wife would tuck the kids into bed, and were very loving to them. All the while, I was waiting for him to take me to a john. Afterward, he went home to his wife. I knew that his profits from my abuse gave them the boost they needed to move into a really nice apartment. I felt like a piece of furniture, an object. I don’t ever remember them using my name. I was strictly there for profit.
The young teen hated being pimped out and would do nearly anything to get out of it. She was asked by the pimp’s wife to be a nanny to their children and gave that some consideration. However, the pimp then forced her to work in a massage parlor. Between horribly brutal rapings and beatings from him and the johns, the girl longed for someone to magically rescue her. She had already been homeless for two years, highly addicted to drugs, trafficked, and abused in every way possible. She got her opportunity when word came that the massage parlor was being investigated, and the pimp told her to go home for a couple of weeks. She left, and never went back.
That, however, was not the end of Amira’s troubles.
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