My name is Afsha Ali Khan. Now I am 17 years old. I am from Hyderabad. I am a girl who hit puberty at the age of nine. I was assaulted, physically and mentally.
At the age of nine, I was assaulted in my school by one of the male teachers. He was the art teacher.
I used to love painting and drawing. I was amazed by his drawings and always wished to paint and draw like him. The respect which I had for him changed into hatred.
As time passed, he used to call me to his cabin and in the name of teaching, he started to touch my hands and shoulders. And as more time passed, he began touching my private parts.
Finally, I got the courage to say this to my mother, but she said: “Leave it, don’t mention this to others.”
The day after that when I came to school, I was praying and wanted him to be on leave. That day he didn’t come to class. Within a week, I came to know that he was fired because of his behaviour with girls. Some of the girls had gone to the principal.
After that, for three years, I didn’t face anything, but now I see men on my way to school, and some of them are also my neighbours who stare at my thighs and other parts of my body.
I am doing what my grandmother had said to me once: “Men do this. They are doing this just for fun. You just don’t mind them.”
But for how long should girls avoid this and think that boys/men are just having fun and allow them to keep doing it?