The last few years of our adolescence and early years of adulthood are probably the most pivotal times of our lives. Stepping into the real world from our protected homes, we are full of excitement and energy. You feel like you can take on the world. The freedom to follow your dreams and becoming independent are exhilarating and scary at the same time. In all of this excitement and confusion, dangerous realities sometimes silently creep into our lives and hold us emotional hostage for a long time to come, if not forever. The experience can shake up our confidence.

Grooming, an offense punishable by law entails preparing children and young persons for sexual acts and is one such horrific reality in our society. In this episode, we bring you a story of a young woman, who was a victim of grooming. We share this story anonymously. Many of you may see parts of yourself in our survivor. And many might relate with the confusion, naïveté, and scare that our protagonist goes through. Sexual predators exist within our families and young girls (especially) fall victim to these expert manipulators not the least because of traditional advice of ‘keeping quiet’, ‘don’t tell anybody’ and so on. We hope that through this episode, we can make more people aware of this crime and ensure are we are raising the new generation of girls differently.

Music:

“Unreal Piano” by tictac9; “Somber Ambiance” by Speedenza; “ambience03.wav” by yewbic; “under the stars loop.mp3” by ShadyDave; “feelings of twilight loop” by ShadyDave; “Funky Old School Beat” by tictac9; “old cell mobile phone text sms message sound” by pj123pj; “01337 knocking 1.wav” by Robinhood76; ‘My Love (piano loop) by ShadyDave; “Airplane, Boeing, Flyby, Right to Left, A.wav” by InspectorJ; “Solemn intro 1I59” by Setuniman; “Melancholic Piano Ballad” by Toivo161; “cine rotor2.wav” by Hoerspielwerstatt_HEF; “Dark Ambience” by PatrickLieberkind; “Passenger car braking” by YleArkisto; “Suspenseful Orchestral Ambiance Soundtrack (Loop)” by EFlexMusic; “complaining 0V12m” by Setuniman; “Nordic” by mareproduction; “Interstellar (Game Music)” by tictac9.