Margareta's Story

My name is Margareta and I am 18 years old. I have two more sisters. We lived in different places — we never had our own place. We had to go and ask people to let us live at their place until we found another. There were many times when we didn't have anything to eat.

My father passed away when I was a few months old; he died in a fire. I had many fathers — I had six, and this was a lot for me. My second father, in the first week of living with us, was treating us well. Then he started to beat my mother.

I was not going to school then, but I was trying to learn by myself whatever I could. Sometimes I would ask my cousins, whenever they came back from school, to teach me whatever they learned, so I could learn to read and write. I had to skip school a lot because I had to stay at home and clean and cook. When my mother would come home, my sisters and I were always beaten up, with bruises on our bodies.

When I started to grow up, when I was about 11 or 12 years old, I was always scared of one thing: to be alone with my father in the same room. One time he asked me to come with him to my aunt Sarah's. On the way there, we walked through the woods, and he told me to take a break from walking. He then asked me to take off my clothes. I started to cry, and he told me if I didn't take my clothes off, he will — I thought to myself, this is the last day of my life. I gathered all my courage and told him that I would start to scream if he tried to do anything to me. He slapped me so hard that I fell. When I woke up, I could not believe what he did. I hated myself. I started to scream, so he knocked me out again. When I woke up, I was already dressed, but I had blood on my body. In the morning, I started to cry, and he threatened me that if I ever told anyone about this, I would not be alive.

When I got home, I started to cry and I fell again. My sister realized what happened. For the next five to six weeks I was so weak. My mother was asking me about it, but I couldn't tell her. When I decided to tell her, she didn't believe me. I was so scared of him every time he was in the room.

One day I decided that I couldn't do it anymore, so I went to the school balcony to end my life. A lady saw me and tried to help me; she brought me home. My mother was not home — only my younger sister, whose legs were tied to a pillar like a dog. Later on, I was sent to a children's center.

There I heard about Vatra. I thought to myself that the chances of me getting in were slim. I was so happy when I heard that there was a place for me there. I went into my room and I thanked God for it. My mother came to the family day at Vatra recently, and she saw how we live here, and she loved it. I am so grateful to everyone involved in this, for everything I was given here.