They said I was either 1 or 2 when my father died; nobody seems to agree on the exact age. After his death, I was sent to live with my grandma in Nima. Later, I was moved to my dad’s elder sister, who also lived in Nima but farther from my granny. My little sister, who was born shortly after my dad passed, stayed with her too. My mom wasn’t around; she just left, and my aunt stepped up and became the mother I never really got to know.

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But life wasn’t easy for her either, and since she had her own children plus me and my sister, she eventually sent me to another aunt in Tema while my sister stayed behind. I was around 5 or 6, and even though I can’t remember the exact age, I remember how excited I was to be in a new environment.

The house was full of men. Everywhere I turned, left or right, there were men. My aunt’s husband had a lot of friends staying over, and he was the type who offered help to anyone who needed it. Every Tom, Dick, and Harry found shelter in that house, and one of them took advantage of me.

He started by making me sit on his lap every night after my aunt went to bed, and then he began touching me. Sometimes he would force me onto his lap just to feel himself, and I was a child who didn’t understand what was happening. When my aunt went out, the men would watch porn openly, and I thought it was just TV, so I would peep through the window without knowing any better.

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My aunt would come back and accuse me of stealing, and she beat me so much that I started to believe she was a witch, especially when she punished me for things like putting the wrong lid on a pot. I began to love school because it was the only place she couldn’t torment me, but every day I returned home to meet the same pain.

Things got worse when she brought in my cousin from another step-sister, and we started waking up at 3 or 4 a.m. to clean and do chores. One time, I threw away a spoiled piece of bread because I didn’t want to fall sick, but when she found out, she made me eat it from the trash, and I did it because I had no choice.

What that man did to me turned on a switch inside me that I didn’t know how to turn off. I started craving touch, I wanted to be loved, and I practised kissing and other things with my cousin. Someone else broke my virginity because of school fees. My aunt had given me the money before travelling to Dubai, and I hid it under my bed, but it went missing. When her sister-in-law found out, she beat me with a spatula, and I had no choice but to give in to a guy who promised to help me pay my fees.

Then, in the blink of an eye, I became the baddest. I lost direction, I paved my own path, and I started sleeping with anyone. It wasn’t because I wanted to, but because I didn’t know what else to do. When my aunt turned on her strict switch, I would jump walls just to escape and come back before anyone noticed. When I got caught, I lied and said it was not me, it was the devil.

Even with that kind of lifestyle, I still wanted to be better. I wanted to go to school, graduate, and get a job. I worked hard to pay half of my fees, and I did everything in between, even while going around.

I don’t know if the abuse made me promiscuous, but I know I hated it. I hated myself every time I was done with a man. Some were boyfriends, some were flings, and some were just so I could eat. Now I’m 25, and my body count is up there. I’ve wished I could start over or end it all, but I know life doesn’t work like that, so I’m picking up the pieces and rewriting my story.

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I’m making peace with the fact that I was molested and went wayward, but now I want to stop. If the past comes back, I’ll face it, and if it doesn’t, I’ll keep moving and make sure I impact something righteous in another girl’s life. I see young girls making the same mistakes I did, and I know they don’t know any better, so I want to be the one who helps them.

Now that I live alone, I don’t even care to go out. I used to wonder why my aunt kept me inside, but maybe she was protecting me, or maybe she was just harsh. If she had been gentler, maybe I wouldn’t have turned out this way. But I forgive her, and I forgive myself too. As for my birth mother, she was doing drugs, and she still is.

—Bertha

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