Delfi Documentary: Victims of pedophiles who dare to speak out call for change

In the documentary “BK 153: Abused Childhood”, three women, Daria, Laura and Natalija (her name has been changed), who experienced sexual violence in childhood, share their experiences – one of them was molested by her biological father, two were victimized by their stepfather. Laura even got pregnant and gave birth to a baby by her stepfather.

I. Pukėnaitė said that after offering the women to share their stories, she was even a little surprised and impressed by their courage, that none of them had to be persuaded to speak.

“The only girl asked me what was the purpose of this film. We connected by video call because she lives abroad, we talked and I think we got a feel for each other. I explained that by using their stories, I am trying to reveal the systemic loopholes in Lithuanian laws, the shortcomings of the medical system, which allow those crimes to happen, and when they have already happened, they still do not contribute to the well-being of the victims. Court proceedings take a long time, it is very difficult to prove the guilt of a sexual abuser, victims have the only help center in Lithuania specifically specialized for them – there are many problems. These three stories have a common denominator – all three girls who were once girls, and now adult women, experienced sexual violence in their childhood, but the experience of each of them illustrates a different problem,” said I. Pukėnaitė.

She noticed that following the prevailing news in Lithuania about sexual violence against minors, certain leitmotifs are repeated.

“For example, those cases take a very long time in court, the position of children in the court process is much weaker, in general we have very serious social value problems, for example, the close environment of many children who have suffered from pedophiles or other sexual abusers usually knows that something is happening. When I spoke to the heroines of the film, I said that I would like to look at these issues, but in order for them to gain some face and for us to understand their real impact, their importance, we need people who do not have this experience from a textbook, not from reading some legal case, to speak. but they would have gone through it themselves”, said the author of the film.

Two of the film’s protagonists speak facing the camera, with unchanged voices and names.

“The third heroine also wanted to speak with her real name, facing the camera, but I talked her out of it. Her abuser was a stepfather, but she was a very sensitive girl, lived in a very socially sensitive environment and never went to law enforcement for help. Now the statute of limitations has already expired, she cannot legally do anything because of her experience, and her speaking openly while fully presenting herself would be a very serious violation of the presumption of innocence,” explained I. Pukėnaitė.

“Anyway, I really admire each of the heroines of my film, because they all wanted to speak openly because they see great benefits in it. Before I started making this film, I thought that part of the motivation for the heroines to want to speak would be anger, because some kind of justice has not been restored, it doesn’t matter that some pedophiles are convicted, the person still had to grow up with this trauma – it marked the person for the rest of their life . It’s hard to say whether they don’t carry that pain with them to this day, but I was very impressed that they all agreed to help other boys and girls who may now go through the same suffering that they had to go through,” she said.

I. Pukėnaitė revealed that the heroines of the film themselves proposed sub-themes for the film, for example, their idea was to talk about the need to provide help to pedophiles until they commit a crime.

“Two of them said that now that they have been in therapy, they have found peace with themselves, and one of the dominant feelings they feel towards their abusers is pity. They told me that they did not believe that a healthy person could do such a thing, they suspected that perhaps they had done the same to their childhood sexual abusers. So this was one of the sub-themes suggested by them, and they also really wanted to talk about sex education in the film, about the fact that young children must understand their bodies, their sexuality. No one says that a four-year-old child needs to know what sexual intercourse is, but they need to know some elementary rules that each of us has some parts of our body that other uncles or aunts cannot touch without permission. I was very impressed by this feature of my heroes, none of them were motivated by anger,” said the filmmaker.

However, according to her, the most important thing is that these stories should not be treated as isolated cases, which happen from time to time.

“I would very much like the experiences of the characters in the film not to be written off and belittled. I would like their experiences to be listened to as serious alarm statements that any child, no matter what environment they grow up in, can become a victim of sexual abusers if they do not have basic knowledge about their bodies,” she emphasized.