break the silence

My name is Fahmeeda Khan and today, I have the courage to tell you my story. I am no longer a victim. I am a survivor. There is a person who calls himself a man, a Religious leader and an upstanding citizen, but he is nothing but a coward, a petty thief and a horrific abuser. He's name is Ismail Cassimjee and you may have heard of him but don't be fooled by his appearances.

This man is a narcissist, a wife beater and a manipulator.

He took away my dignity, my self pride, my confidence, my beauty and my power to have a voice. Today, I will be heard and I would like nothing but the support of every woman who's been through abuse, who knows of someone that's been through it and every man who will always fight against it.

Someone who can make you feel worthless, and completely dependant on them. Someone who can murder your unborn baby. Someone who can burn you in the most intimate of places, someone who can literally take away your ability to smile by abusing you in such a way that you have irreversible damage done.

Someone who could mercilessly grate your face, pull out your nails and laugh as they watched you bleed. Someone who would lock you up in the place you supposed to call home and record your every movement. Someone who felt they owned you, and you are their property to do as they please with. Someone who could choke you till you couldn't breath or sell you to pay the rent, and make you feel like you had no escape because you came from a poor background.

Someone who makes you look in the mirror and want to hate every scar, every bruise, every burn. Someone who manipulated you into thinking you have no self worth, no self respect. Who allowed men to take advantage of you when he supposed to protect you. Who could throw a boiling hot pot of food at you with no remorse, who could torture a little 6 year old boy by starving him and making him climb through bars of a window to escape being tormented.

My journey has been a difficult one. One with a lot of mistakes and bad choices because of the person I was moulded to believe I am. However in that journey I was blessed enough to find a place called home, and a family I call my own. I have become financially independent and stable, religiously conscious, wholeheartedly content, and finally able to give my mum and kids the comfort of a good life they deserve. Today, I am able to make that change that people like Ismail despise, that people like Ismail will work hard at destroying.

You may have broken my spirit. But every little piece was found by the backing of my people, of a company I call home, of a place my heart craves for. My Director and our team at Upward Spiral Fuels stand firmly against GBV

And I am asking you to help support me by giving my story a hearing. By giving someone else hope. By saying no to abuse. By Standing up for yourself or others in our situation.

You may have thrived on my fear.

But now you should fear my strength. You may have preyed on me for being alone and vulnerable but now I have the backing of an army. You may have taken my voice away but now I will shout out from the roof tops and call your name in the way it deserves. You have no strength. You have no power over me. And you will always rue this day, the day that I decided to fight back. The day that I was given a voice to make the decision that justice finally needs to prevail.

I call on the general public to say NO to emotional abuse. To say NO to physical abuse. To say NO to mental torture and abuse. To say NO to financial abuse. To say YES to helping your fellow colleague, friend and neighbour find their strength and voice just as I found mine, with a company and people who see my spirit and support my visions. I am valued. I am perfect. I am worthy. I am enough!

PLEASE NOTE THAT THIS IS THE ORIGINAL VERSION OF THE WORK SUBMITTED AND THAT IT HAS NOT BEEN EDITED