NEW YORK – American top chef and author Padma Lakshmi has revealed heragony and the cases of sexual harassment and rape at younger age.
She stated that she was sexually assaulted when she was 7 and raped whenshe was 16.
Padma’s article has come as a response to US President Donald Trump’squestion posed to Christine Blasey Ford asking why she didn’t immediatelyreport when she was sexually assaulted by Supreme Court nominee BrettKavanaugh in the 1980s reportedly. The question later inspired the hashtag#WhyIDidntReport on social media.
Padma, sharing her harrowing experience of harassment, in the articlewrote:
“I understand why both women would keep this information to themselves forso many years, without involving the police. For years, I did the samething. On Friday, I tweeted about what had happened to me so many yearsago,” Lakshmi wrote.
“Now, 32 years after my rape, I am stating publicly what happened. I havenothing to gain by talking about this.
But we all have a lot to lose if we put a time limit on telling the truthabout sexual assault and if we hold on to the codes of silence that forgenerations have allowed men to hurt women with impunity,” she said.
In the article, the host shared how she had been ‘taught a lesson’ forspeaking up. “When I was 7 years old, my stepfather’s relative touched mebetween my legs and put my hand on his erect penis.
Shortly after I told my mother and stepfather, they sent me to India for ayear to live with my grandparents. The lesson was: If you speak up, youwill be cast out.”