Melanie's story

This is a video we made with the help of a friend of ours. One of our insiders is called Melanie, she is 9 years old and this is about some of the abuse she suffered at the hands of friends of the family who looked after her during school holidays and before and after school.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0yckRRqPxU4

The Story Behind the Video

In this small sleepy beach community in South Australia her world was turned upside down. While staying there with friends of the family, she was placed in a cage with another girl aged 12. Her name was Michelle Mitchell. They were kept in this cage until the man came for them. He would sexually and physically abuse them and then put them back in the cage when he was finished. We don’t know how long this went on for or how many times it happened. One night Melanie escaped and ran down the beach to hide behind the bridge that leads to the town. She desperately clung to the side of the bridge hoping that her mother would come to her rescue and save her from what had been happening. She didn't.  Instead the man found her and hit her across the head for running away.  He put her back in the cage with Michelle.

Melanie remembers Michelle being shot and dying in that cage. Michelle's blood crept over the cement floor towards her. As Melanie huddles in the corner of the black metal cage, trying to stay away from Michelle’s blood, all she wants to do is curl up and die too, so this will all end.

To Melanie, the blood that we shed when we self-harm tells the truth of what happened to her and Michelle.

Under the bridge runs a river/creek going out to the sea. Richard pushed Melanie into the river. He told her he hated her and wanted her to die. He pushed her head down under the water and held her there about 5 or 6 times. She was gasping for breath. Eventually he pulled her out of the water. She was crying, he said “shut up bitch”. Someone else inside our system took the emotion for her and she stopped crying. She collapsed exhausted on the sand. She lay there for a while trying to get her breath back. He took her back to the shack. He tied her hands to the back of a chair so she was facing it and bending over the front of the chair. He pulled out a cane, and whipped her bottom again and again. He had no compassion. It hurt.