Rape victim in Shomrat: "My daughter was harassed and I advised her not to complain. Nothing has changed."

Yael Grimberg, a victim of gang rape that happened in the north about thirty years ago, told 103FM in an interview about her dealing with the event that ruined her life.

She said the state has not made progress in dealing with similar cases.

"We learned to talk about it and it's awfully nice, but not to do anything. I do not feel safe."

Walla!

news

03/01/2022

Monday, 03 January 2022, 09:15

• Share on Facebook

• Share on WhatsApp

• Share on Twitter

• Share on Email

• Share on general

• Comments

  Comments

In the video: Filing the indictment for rape against the 15-year-old boy from Tel Aviv (Walla!)

Yael Grimberg, a victim of gang rape at Kibbutz Shomeret about thirty years ago, spoke this morning (Monday) with Golan Yokfaz and Anat Davidov on 103FM, and has participated in the struggle over the years.

In 1988, when she was only 14, she was brutally raped by a gang of boys, abusing her physically and mentally for long days.

Since then, she has struggled to maintain a normative life routine, but without success.

Over the years, dozens of rape cases, sexual assaults and sexual harassment have been exposed, and only recently have high school rape cases in Tel Aviv and the south of the country made headlines.

"We learned to talk about it and it's awfully nice, but from here and do something? No. Nothing has changed. I always said it would happen again, because it always happens. There were lots of other unreported cases," she said.

More on Walla!

The 15-year-old from Tel Aviv was charged with rape and indecent acts on the girls: "He treated them like an object"

To the full article

More on Walla!

• Police confrontation between the suspect in the rape at the prestigious high school and the students: "You raped me"

• "Shouting for You": High school students in Tel Aviv demonstrate in support of complainants against the boy suspected of rape

• Dealing with acne?

  There is a sixty treatment for this end with 92% success

"I always said it would happen again, because it always happens."

Grimberg (Photo: courtesy of the photographers)

"I hope they take it seriously and maybe once, as in other countries, give a proper punishment. Maybe it will be a little daunting," she said in the context of recent cases. "Not enough lessons are being done from the Ministry of Education on how to behave as human beings, and not behave so brutally towards other people. It's neither the Corona nor the social networks. I have no good news - it always has been and always will be."

Grimberg, a single mother of three daughters, shared that when her daughter shared her being sexually harassed, she advised her not to file a complaint. "I told her what would happen. 'You filed a complaint, you will have to identify him, they will talk to each other and eventually he will get four months in prison. Do you want to go through that? My daughter, you will be photographed,' and then she got off of it," she said.

"There is not a day that I go to bed and I am not in the kibbutz in one way or another," she said candidly about the difficulties she has experienced since those difficult events. "I always get there, and usually I'm still the same 14-year-old girl. "Another day will pass. I do not call it life, I'm just here."

She had to give up her daughters to foster families due to her mental condition.

"They are very supportive of me but I do not want to throw myself on them," she said.

"They are in the beginning of their lives. I see the grandchildren and it gives me another 'push'. These are the bright spots I have," she said.

Over the years she has been to psychiatric hospitals several times and even threatened to commit suicide: "My daughters saw me in very extreme situations, when I just did not want to continue living. I did not get out of bed, I was a lump of meat lying and doing nothing. I was strong but not really, I call it - "Autopilot ... it's the same disconnect I had then, when my case happened," she explained.

"This disconnect exists and it does not pass over the years. I do not want to confuse the mind and say it passes, because it does not."

The school in Tel Aviv where the suspect boy studied (Photo: Reuven Castro)

Grimberg is dealing with feelings of guilt and depression over those days. "Why did I actually get in the car? I have no idea how many times I prayed to God not to get up in the morning. I have to take pills just to get out the door," she said, but added that in practice she had not left her home for nearly three years. "I do not feel safe," she explained.

She recalled damn days in the kibbutz and the tedious process she had to go through in filing the complaint. "I told the kibbutz nurse what happened and after a few days they came from the police. Many times I was asked, if they would write me an apology, I would forgive them? I said no - you can not forgive. I just could not believe it happened to me, these are people I grew up with from the age of five. , She said.

In fact, it all started a year before.

"The leader, as I call him, probably liked me or something but he was always harassing me," she said.

Grimberg recalled that one evening she was offered to meet a boy, and she answered in the affirmative.

"We talked for maybe 2 minutes and then they all just got in the car. That's where my life actually ended. For me it happened yesterday," she explained, adding: "If I concentrate really, I can even tell what they were wearing."

• news

• News in Israel

• Events in Israel

Tags

• Ounce

• Sexual exploitation

• Young people

• schools

• You saved