WASHINGTON (Web Desk) – A United States based actress who also starred in a Bollywood movie against Imran Khan has revealed that she was sexually abused in her childhood by a family friend who told her to keep silence.
Poorna Jagannathan, who appeared in famous ‘House of Cards’, said she was sexually assaulted at the age of nine years for the first time, in a video for World Bank to urge women to speak up against sexual harassment.
“There was a neighbour and family friend who got his hands on me. He obviously told me not to tell anyone. I have encountered so many incidents as a child and as a young adult. They were violent but I wouldn’t speak about it. There was a code that you wouldn’t talk about it.”
She also speaks of her harrowing experience in Delhi buses and says, “… You enter into that cage and what happens inside is totally out of your control.”
In a powerful video titled ‘Breaking the Cycle of Violence,’ the actress while revealing her painful past urged others to break the silence of sexual violence at a tender age.
