A woman, a dog and a walnut tree, the harder you beat them, the better they be.
“Those four months changed my life.”
Who: Paulina Bengtson
What: Runs Novahuset, a voluntary association which supports victims of sexual assault.
“Actually, I had a feeling straight away that something was wrong. He looked like someone from the Mafia, not at all as gentle as he’d seemed. But I was gullible and ignored my own warning signals. I was used to trusting people.”
Not any longer. Today Paulina lives at a protected address and is keeping a check on when Kent will be released from prison. But let us start from the beginning, when Paulina climbed into Kent’s car:
“He pulled off his leather jacket and I’m sure he wanted me to see the knife he had in his inside pocket. He was talking on the phone, about people who were to be “sorted out” and he told me about his own and his family’s criminal contacts. We drove for miles.
“I was paralysed with fear. I can’t explain it any other way. Maybe I could have got away, but I was too frightened. When we finally arrived at our destination he said he wanted sex, and that another man was going to watch. I told him I didn’t want to, but his threats became more menacing.
“I agreed to have intercourse that one time, I suppose I thought that I’d be able to get out of it any other time, but I couldn’t. He wouldn’t let me go and he started breaking down my feeling of self-worth. He insisted this was what I wanted, I was a whore after all, he knew that ….”
For four months Paulina lived in the car, in hotel rooms, in flats in various locations – and under constant threat.
For four months Paulina lived in the car, in hotel rooms, in flats in various locations – and under constant threat.
“Sometimes he left me alone for short periods, but he would take my phone and all the money, and he claimed his friends were outside the house, watching me. I believed all that. He threatened to kill me or my family if I tried to get away. After a while I also started believing that all the repulsive acts and the violent sex – with young boys, old men, anybody – was my own fault. That I was the one who was repulsive. I was ashamed.”
Kent took money for Paulina’s ‘services’. Most of the time, he took part in the abuse himself, but sometimes he just sat there masturbating.
If Paulina had not become pregnant she might never have found the courage to leave.
“When I found out I had a baby inside me, it was no longer just about me. There was another person to take care of.”
She called her ex-boyfriend, who came to get her. She told him everything, but she could not face telling her parents and friends.
“I suppressed it all. I said my child’s father was a boyfriend who had abandoned us. Then my daughter was born and I concentrated on being the perfect single mother. Kent carried on calling me; sometimes he called me “bloody whore” and sometimes “the mother of my child”.”
The police weren’t very interested. They said it wasn’t possible to prove anything.
Paulina’s daughter was two years old when she bumped into a man on the street who said he had seen a film she was in. When she saw it, a hard-core pornographic film, she realised that films like this could be circulating on the internet. She had to do something, so she went to the police.
“The police weren’t very interested. They said it wasn’t possible to prove anything. They didn’t even look at the film, which contained obvious abuse. I gave up. I felt no-one would believe me anyway. Everyone says it’s my own fault. I became silent again.”
But when Paulina met and fell in love with a new man some years later, she knew that she had to tell him what had happened. The unprovoked fears, the way she jumped when he touched her, her sexual problems – they all had to be explained. It was her new boyfriend who read in the paper that a 37-year-old man from Västerås had been arrested after keeping another woman as a sex slave. Together with her father, who was told what had happened for the first time, Paulina went to the police.
This time she was taken seriously, and during the trial everyone believed her.
“It felt so good, but it was also extremely hard. Going through everything again, remembering, and talking about all the disgusting things that had happened – I had nightmares, cried and suffered agonies. Every other day I just wanted to walk away from it all, but then my wonderful lawyer would call and persuade me to stand firm. “You are so strong and brave,” he said, over and over again.
When I finally joined a proper, good conversation group with other women who had experienced sexual abuse I was able to pour it all out.
Kent was sent to prison for 14 years. And some time later Paulina started Novahuset.
“When I finally joined a proper, good conversation group with other women who had experienced sexual abuse I was able to pour it all out. We had the same experiences. We had all lived with a terrible feeling of shame. Talking about sex is much more difficult than talking about bruising.
In 2008 I felt I was ready. I wanted to use my own experiences to help others.”
Novahuset does not have any shelters but it offers help via phone, chat and email. Paulina, six committee members and 40 volunteers answer questions and give advice round the clock. Around 20 women contact them every week for support. They also accompany women to the police station and to trials. Paulina herself travels round visiting schools and talking about attitudes, sex and abuse.
Paulina, six committee members and 40 volunteers answer questions and give advice round the clock.
“We are hearing stories of abuse that is becoming more and more brutal,” she says sadly. “Maybe that’s just because more people have the strength to contact us. Maybe it’s because society as a whole, and the media, talk much more about sex, so that the boundaries of what is acceptable are being moved, until it becomes abuse. Then it goes quiet. Sometimes it’s too much even for the professionals – the counsellors, the psychologists. That’s when we are needed.”
Maternal deaths: 5 deaths per 100,000 births
Number of children/woman: 1.67 (2011)
Abortion legislation: Right to abortion up to the end of the 18th week of pregnancy
Law against rape within marriage: Yes
Violence against women in close relationships: On average 17 women are killed each year by their husband, boyfriend, ex-husband or ex-boyfriend.
Saying, USA