MARCH 2015, ISSUE 7
5
Photo credit: Amanda S Thompson
A lot of very influential people around the world came out to meet you and walk with you. What was that experience like and how do you think that might help the project? Meeting the Pope really was quite amazing. I’m not Catholic at all but he is a world figure and this current pope seems to really symbolise a potential for big change so I was really excited that I got to speak to him. As a survivor, it was personally quite transformative because he looked me in the eye when I said I was sexually abused and I could feel that he was genuinely compassionate and he said he was sorry and he blessed me. I don’t think you need to be Catholic to feel moved by being acknowledged in that way. It would be amazing if everyone who’s been sexually abused could be acknowledged in that way. What has the response been like from other survivors to the campaign and the work that you’ve done to raise awareness? Since I started the Road to Change I’ve had so many emails that I couldn’t number them and I’ve just had even more survivors contacting me this week telling me that they’ve pressed charges for the first time in their life and it was the
Photo credit: Amanda S Thompson
Road to Change that inspired them. I’ve had countless numbers of survivors tell me that they’ve started counselling for the first time or told their families for the first time. These are victories for our society and as we become more comfortable talking about this, all these little changes are going to create a massive change. There’s a sort of tsunami coming with all of this that no-one can see yet. What for you were the toughest parts of the journey? I used to say that the walking was the easy bit. One of the hardest things was definitely getting emails and messages from people who would contact me saying that their child or someone they knew was being abused and they didn’t know what to do. I would have to take that and make sure that person got in contact with the relevant authorities in the relevant country. Can you imagine that kind of email arriving quite regularly but then starting to arrive from a lot of different countries? By the time I finished on Saturday, I had 300 private Facebook messages from people, a lot of them survivors, wanting to meet me and speak to me personally. Obviously I want to help as many people as I can but I’m not a counsellor and I don’t have those skills so that’s quite tough. What I am able to do is direct people to great organisations like the Moira
Photo credit: Amanda S Thompson
Anderson Foundation – who helped me and my family. If anyone reading this article needs help, they can contact them for support. Matthew is about to embark on a new offensive as a part of the ONE in FIVE campaign to promote the ratification of the Lanzarote Convention, the main legal instrument to protect children against sexual exploitation and abuse. For more information, Derek Healey visit congress-1in5.eu. @Healey26
Photo credit: Amanda S Thompson
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