Book excerpt: When I was 5 years old my father inserted mashed chillies into my genitals and burned my eyes with a flaming torch.’ Life Behind the Silence is a heartbreaking and inspiring autobiography which gives hope to children and women who have been abused. Gina Azizah’s Malaysian childhood was not filled with toys, presents and love, it was filled with physical, sexual and mental abuse from a monsterous father and a dysfunctional family. Her childhood was punctated by episodes of abuse from the very people who should have been caring for her – even her grandfather (a Muslim priest) tried to rape her. Gina had no one she could tell about her abuse – who would believe her word against that of respected members of the community? So Gina has now chosen to give voice to the darkness of her childhood in her memoir Life Behind the Silence.Gina’s story proves that if you believe in yourself and are strong, anything is possible.