Aaliyah Kashyap Opens Up About Being Assaulted As A Minor By A Middle-Aged Man

Aaliyah Kashyap Opens Up About Being Assaulted As A Minor By A Middle-Aged Man

If I were to walk up to a room right now, filled with women at the moment, and ask for a show of hands for all those who’ve at least once in their lives been assaulted, molested, eve-teased or even threatened, I wouldn’t have to count twice to know that more than 90% of women would’ve raised their hands up. A saddening yet sickening reality, where most of my female peers, including myself, have all encountered incidents in our lives where we were preyed upon by men. And seems like, status, power or even recognition does you no good when you’re a woman, as the recent revelation of being a victim to sexual assault has been made by filmmaker Anurag Kashyap’s daughter, Aaliyah Kashyap.

This disturbing truth was brought to the fore after Aaliyah received a lot of backlash for posting pictures of herself in lingerie on her social media account. It was after she was relentlessly trolled and harassed, that the young woman decided to open up about how the issue goes way back for her.

With over 20,000 followers on Instagram, and an active and engaging social media presence, Aaliyah’s recent pictures were made to be quite the talk of the town especially after the kind of hate and harassment she received by trolls on it. Once again, picking apart a woman on the choice of her clothes, these anonymous trolls were harsh, rude and some even scary, as Aaliyah shared about feeling ‘frightened’ after reading their comments.

 

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A post shared by Aaliyah Kashyap (@aaliyahkashyap)

Also Read : This Woman Caught Her BF Sex-Taping Her Without Consent. That Is Sexual Assault And Nothing Less

Disgusted at the sight of such inhumanity and bitterness, Aaliyah decided to put her two cents out in the world with her latest Instagram post where she wrote, “The past few weeks have been really hard on my mental health. Ever since I posted a photo of me in lingerie, I have been getting the most vile, degrading and disgusting comments. I have never felt more frightened than I have in the past few weeks to the point where I considered deleting my Instagram,” she wrote in a lengthy statement.”

She went on to say how she has tried to ignore the harassment that comes with being on social media, but how her experience has led her to believe that such behaviour “contributes to the rape culture”.

She wrote, “We seem to be a country that will hold candle marches for a woman after she’s been sexually assaulted but won’t protect a woman while she’s alive. And the truth is that women in India grow up being sexualized their whole lives. I have grown up with these kinds of comments to the point where it culminated into me being sexually assaulted as a minor by a middle aged man.”

 

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A post shared by Aaliyah Kashyap (@aaliyahkashyap)

Attaching several screenshots of comments that made our blood boil and roll our eyes to the furthest ends of the Earth, she went on to add, “”They are the same men that are fine with following me and consuming the content I post, yet choose to harass me. If you truly disagree with what I post, then you are free to unfollow me. Nothing I do or post is an invitation for sexual assault.” Aaliyah, who lives in California, US, said instead of asking women to keep a check on their clothes, it is important to “unteach men the predatory behaviour that has been normalised in our society.”

Concluding her powerful post, she wrote, “This is my body, my life and I choose what I want to do with it.” Although in a country where men feel they are entitled to passing such lewd remarks, or even going ahead and assaulting minor girls, it is hard to expect for change to suddenly dawn over us, but there is hoping that Aaliyah’s word would’ve made a difference and stuck in the heads of all those who think it’s their right to criticise us for our choices.

More power to you, Aaliyah!

Also Read : Indian Model Paula Has Accused Filmmaker Sajid Khan Of Sexual Assault. Are We Going To Let Him Get Away Again?

Sadhika Sehgal

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