After 16 Years of Silence, Survivor of Sexual Violence Receives Justice

Billie, now 24 years old, was a victim of sexual violence for a year when she was only 7 years old. The aggressor, her uncle, took advantage of the girl's trust in her aunt, who took care of her while Billie’s mother worked outside the house. In 2023, during an interview for IJM, Billie recounted what happened: “Her husband seemed to be kind to us. But one afternoon, when my family was not at home, I was bored. I didn’t have many toys to play with, so I went to my uncle’s room and asked him if he would allow me to play with his video game. He answered: ‘Do you want to play with my video game? Ok, but first, we will need to do something.’ Then, he forced me to do horrible things that hurt me. He abused me that day.”

For many years, Billie carried the weight of the abuse, afraid to tell her story. Years later, she knew that her younger sister had also been abused by the same man. “My sister insisted that he should be in jail… she [wondered] why no one had done anything. At that time, we lived in my grandfather’s house, so if we reported my uncle, we risked being thrown out of the house,” Billie shared.

The family situation and the difficulties in accessing justice led Billie to postpone his personal dreams and goals. What happened was devastating. After struggling for years with the trauma of the abuse and not getting help, Billie’s sister took her own life. She was 14 years old. “She had been asking for help in so many ways, and nobody was able to hear her” Billie said.    

The abuse she experienced had happened years ago, but this event gave Billie the courage and the drive to seek help to report her uncle and tell her story. However, her fight for justice was not easy. Billie faced rejection and disbelief from her extended family, who sided with the aggressor. In addition, the process was a nightmare: “To begin with, many justice officials didn’t want to receive my complaint, so I went from one place to another. To add to the pain, the people I encountered lacked empathy towards my situation… but who could I complain to? I was on my own and I didn’t even know if I was doing things right.”

After much effort, her complaint was finally received, and Billie was referred to a psychologist for an evaluation. “As she began to ask deep questions, I couldn’t stop crying. This was the first time I was sharing details of my abuse…at the age of 23. Not even my own family knew much of what had happened to me,” Billie recalled.  The support Billie needed finally came when, through a chapter of the Global Survivor Network, Phoenix, she was put in contact with IJM.

From that moment on, Billie’s case took a new direction. “When I came to IJM, first I met with the leader of Phoenix Group so that he could evaluate my condition. We spoke for an hour or so. He listened to me and said: “You have two options: you can either cry or move forward.” I responded: “I choose to move forward.” That same day, I was invited to the Phoenix Group meeting, and although it was difficult, sharing my story with the other women changed me. They held my hand, hugged me, and cried with me. They gave me a strength I had never felt before,” she said.

Thanks to the joint work of IJM and Phoenix Group, Billie was assigned to a specialized lawyer from one of IJM partners, the Legal Clinic of the Bolivian Catholic University San Pablo. Billie’s lawyer took on her case and worked tirelessly to take it to trial while Billie received psychological support from the leader of Phoenix Group. With this support, Billie began to process the trauma she had carried for so many years.

The challenges of the judicial process were considerable. Billie’s family remained divided, with many of her relatives siding with the aggressor, which made the case even more difficult to move forward. In addition, delays in the Bolivian judicial system presented multiple obstacles. However, the legal team did not give up and continued to push the case until it reached the trial.