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updated 15 Jun 2014, 11:40
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Wed, 11 Dec 2013
The Sunday Times
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A rape victim speaks up
by Wong Kim Hoh

Azura Mohamed Noor knows she is putting a lot at stake by what she is doing. Among other things, she risks stigma and discrimination and may have problems finding a life partner.

But the call operator, 24, is determined to go public as a rape victim.

"I am opening up a very old wound. But I want to help other girls who have gone through and are going through what happened to me and and I don't want society to judge us," she told The Sunday Times.

She was scheduled to go public at the We Can! Arts Festival at 3pm Sunday at the Aliwal Arts Centre in Aliwal Street. The event is part of a campaign organised by women's group Aware to trigger change in social attitudes towards violence.

Interviewed at the Aware Centre in Dover Road, soft-spoken Ms Azura said she was raped repeatedly in her home by a family friend when she was 15.

"He threatened to harm my family if I didn't do what he wanted or if I told anybody. I was so afraid," said the youngest of three children of a former shopkeeper and a cleaner who divorced five years ago.

The abuse turned the teenager's life topsy-turvy. She went into depression, became suicidal, started hurting herself, was admitted to the Institute of Mental Health (IMH) and sent to a girls' home for five years.

"There was a lot of hate for my attacker but I learnt to forgive and accept whatever happened to me because if I didn't, I would not be able to move on," she said quietly.

Read the full story here.

(Photos: ST, BH)

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Despite the consequences, the call operator, 24, is determined to go public as a rape victim.
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