The nightmare of three girls subject to sexual violence for 10 years was ended thanks to WLC assistance service intervention

Three minor girls were sexually abused for 10 years by their foster parent. The perpetrator was accused of rape and sexual abuse and did not admit his guilt.

In 2012, a 4-year-old girl was placed in a foster home after her mother was sentenced to 10 years in prison. The authorities placed the child with a foster family, husband and wife, who were already taking care of 6 other children, including two girls. The girl was calling her parents her grandmother and grandfather.

For 10 years, Nicoleta* was sexually abused by her foster parent. The abuse started about two weeks after Nicoleta was placed with the family and continued until the age of 14, when her mother, released from detention, came to take her home.

The ordeal started with intimate touching. The man would wake her up at night, not letting her sleep, repeatedly touching her in the same places. Every time she was in the bathroom, he walked in on her. The little girl would say ‘go away grandpa’ and threaten to complain to her grandmother, but he would reply ‘what haven’t I seen there before?’.

One day, she told him he was going outside to play with the girls. He agreed, but told her ‘when you come back, we’ll have sex’. The little girl asked him if he was OK, and the grandfather replied ‘I am OK and no one will know’. The girl
locked herself in her room and did not go out to play.

The man was groping her every day. He threatened her not to speak to anyone. She told her no one would believe her, and if she told her grandmother, he was beating her.

Sometimes the girl confessed to her grandmother, but she never gave importance to her statements and replied, ‘Don’t take him serious, he is sick… he doesn’t know what he is doing after drinking. Forgive him’. The girl tried to kill herself.

Once the man and the girl went to harvest grapes. When they were in a trailer, he started touching her intimate parts. She asked him to stop, but he replied ‘stay here, I’m not going to hurt you… it won’t hurt’. When he tried to undress her, she jumped out of the trailer and ran home alone.

Other children in the family witnessed the abuse: ‘One night I saw the grandfather taking off the duvet and climbing up the fireplace bed near Nicoleta, who said to him: “grandpa, leave me alone”’, says one of the boys. When children were asking ‘grandpa, what are you doing?’, the man replied ‘I came to cover Nicoleta’.

This story came to the WLC team’s attention in 2022, when Nicoleta’s mother approached them with a request for help because she suspected that her daughter had been sexually abused by the man who took care of her between 2012-2022.

The WLC lawyer represented the victim’s interests in court. Other complaints with the law enforcement authorities came from the other two girls in the family, who said they had been sexually molested and raped by the same perpetrator.

In September 2024, the lower court found him guilty of rape and harassment on three counts and sentenced the perpetrator to 15 years in prison, being obliged to pay moral damages of 100,000 MDL.

It took two years until the girl could quietly start a new life and recover after a long and distressful process. Now she lives with her mother and is safe.

The girl’s first name has been changed to protect her identity.