“Because We are Girls”: An interview with the Pooni Sisters
- Dikshita Jain
- Oct 30, 2021
- 8 min read
Updated: Dec 22, 2021
This article is based on the interview conducted with the centers of the documentary 'Because We Are Girls' featuring the story of the Pooni sisters - Jeeti Pooni, Kira Pooni and Salakshana Pooni, residents of Williams Lake, B.C.
TW: Sexual Violence, Trauma
The Pooni sisters are sexual assault survivors and activists who decided to break the silence and come forward to share their childhood sexual abuse stories. They remained silent for years due to fear, feeling of shame and their family culture of no respect shown towards women, but eventually decided to call the police and report the crime.
I was given the great opportunity to interview the Pooni sisters. My personal motive for conducting this written interview was to assess and get inspired on how they got the strength to break their silence, challenge their culture of respecting men in the family no matter what they do and rise above staying silent to keep the family fame stored as the culture entails.
For those who are seeking more inspiration and insight on the journey of the Pooni sisters, look out for The Silent Stoning, a book soon to be released by Jeeti Pooni. For more information visit jeetipooni.com by signing up for ‘A note from Jeeti’.
“My biggest strength is my sisters,” says Salakshna Pooni in the interview, followed by Jeeti Pooni who broke the silence for her little self, her innocent sisters, her daughter and the other girls in her family.
Each sister had their own reasons to be there for each other through the rough times. As Kira Pooni says, “The biggest reason I started breaking silence is very early on in my young twenties, I wanted to sound the alarm bell”. However, for years due to conservatism in the family, Kira Pooni was shut down by her mother and forced to stay silent.
I personally agree with Kira Pooni that the recent court order to put their case on hold did not make justice to them. When asked to comment on the latest court order, Kira said “I would not have put myself through that (court procedures). I don’t recommend people going to the judicial system. I think the way it is set up right now, its scales are not even. It’s a system that protects the perpetrator and does nothing to help anybody who had a crime against them.”
Interviewing Jeeti Pooni and Salakshana Pooni has made me realize the importance of ‘self-healing’ and ‘finding greatness’ in what we have and what is to come ahead. Getting justice through our system, especially as sexual assault survivors, Salakshana Pooni responds by stating that “I just accept the decision even if it didn’t went my way...No, I don’t have any plans because I don’t wanna put any negativity into justice anymore. We have done it for like the last 14 years and now I focus on my well-being”, by Jeeti replying “It’s just me living a great life and trusting the inner guidance… I still feel that justice for me is all this greatness that I have in my life despite the situation, the abuse I went through, despite the turmoil... In me continuing to do great work that I was born to do.”
The mental trauma they went through can not be fulfilled by just outcasting the culprit. Rape victims don’t just go through sexual abuse, and physical pain, but also the mental trauma, years of healing processes and memories that sometimes disrupt a person’s life cycle and mental growth. Having to also financially manage themselves while following and paying for the court procedures, the judicial system needs to evolve! The Pooni sisters almost spent 14 years trying to get justice legally. Thinking of all that the Pooni sisters had to go through and agreeing with what Kira Pooni said, makes me question: Is it even worth it to reach the judicial system for justice? Can the system be trusted with our stories?
The documentary Because We Are Girls is one of the biggest sensations in the lives of survivors who share a similar story, similar cultural background, and are unable to break their silence. It showcases the conservatism in the family. The culture entails the shame on the victim, and the victim’s family rather than the shame on the criminal, and showcasing the uneven treatment among female and male children within the families.
I salute Jeeti Pooni, Salakashana Pooni and Kira Pooni for creating this documentary. Having to go back in the past and relive those memories to provide their voice with a platform for other survivors like them is not an easy task, and I cannot imagine the mental pain involved in this process. Both Salakashana and Kira Pooni said that the biggest reason they created the documentary was because of their sister Jeeti Pooni, to support her and stand by her.
Upon hearing the answer to what motivated Jeeti to create this documentary, her reply had an unforgettable impression on my mind. She mentioned that “I knew that this story wasn’t a Pooni sister story. It was a story every home in some shape given the culture that we come from the suppression, the oppression, the patriarchy and it was my desire to make this film and then eventually I made this film to make a desire into creative reality.”
I could readily relate the suppression, the oppression and the patriarchy that exists in the culture of not only Punjabi’s, but in many families all over India itself that has affected so many innocent lives. According to the RAINN organization, more than 2 of the 3 sexual assault crimes go unreported out of which upon conducting the survey, it was found that 35% of the unreported crimes are due to feared retaliation, and the belief that the police could not or would not do anything to help or to get justice.
“I find it affects every way emotionally, physically, mentally, spiritually... And I think this will stick with you. If you don’t work on it, don’t tell the truth, it just sucks, everything. You can’t be the person where you are supposed to be,” says Salakshana Pooni on how conservatism in families leads to ill effects on victims. She strongly advises speaking about it no matter how hard it is or even if there is a huge price attached to it else it will lead to suicidal thoughts and dying from suicide.
Following Salakashana Pooni, Jeeti Pooni says, “it further fuels the cycle of abuse. And it protects those that commit harm. So, the cycle just keeps on repeating itself, repeating itself.”
She explains that staying silent means asking the victim “to not use their voice” leading the victims to think that “they are unworthy and they are unloved.”
She further shares that forcing the suppression, the oppression and the patriarchy on the victims rather re-creates the whole cycle of abuse in the family that leads to more crimes, causing more trauma.
While Kira Pooni compares the pressure, the abuse and its ill-effects to the pressure cooker, she mentions that “Where you are pushed down (in the pressure cooker) all the way to the bottom of the pressure cooker and you are not allowed to even peep who you are as yourself...your identity is only created through the males in your family...So, you don’t have a right to exist unless you’re attached to like the honour of, males of your family. So if you are dishonoured to any type of, you know, abuse, you don’t have the right to speak out because that is gonna blow the lid of the pressure cooker off and then your whole family is gonna essentially demise in that process of you coming out.”
She advises victims to open up and make an identity of themselves, be able to see through themselves and love for who they are.
The oppression, the patriarchy and the suppression of survivors have prevailed for generations in so many cultures. The culture focuses on pressing the voice of the victim, promoting victim blaming, victim shaming and not believing the victim at all. “Fake victims” or even the believed victims, especially women due to patriarchal society, are asked to stay silent to keep their family's fame and honour.
Jeeti later adds that “I do believe it’s our own demise, hindering our families, our culture, it’s hindering our children from thriving and flourishing. And I do believe if we continue on this path of suppression, oppression, and fallancing the voices and you know keeping the abusers safe, our culture is gonna land on its knees, if not worse.”
At last, for those survivors, who are able to relate to the story of the Pooni sisters, and are staying silent in protecting family honour, or are unable to break their silence due to conservatism in their families, each Pooni sister has a note for you.
Salakshana Pooni: I wish they have a support system. I just hope they have someone to trust somebody and find help to tell them. I hope everyone can find their support.’
Jeeti Pooni: ‘When it comes to breaking your silence, you don’t have to do it on a loudspeaker if you don’t choose to. As long as you acknowledge your story that has happened and you don’t keep on suppressing it, thinking you are pretending it as if it never happened. As long as you know your story, own your story, you know your truth and you stand in that, it doesn’t matter what anybody else thinks; whether you are believed or not. When it comes to protecting family honour, that is a tool that has been used for thousands of years in generations to suppress voices, so I get it’s hard to wrap around it and see your life through a different lens, I can tell you from where I am standing that even though whatever past you had, whatever horrible abuse or the neglect or whatever has happened in one’s life I do know that there is the other side where there is the life that is full of deserving and worthiness. One has to do their own work”
Salakshana continues with, “One has to find their support, their own healing work and their own trusting within themselves about their own truth that will guide them forward in life. There are consequences to your telling the truth and we never know what those consequences are, Most of them we make up in our minds and then some of them may be true and some might not be but there’s just this trust one has to have in themselves that things will turn out as they will turn out and then one takes step to move forward there. But also about healing, know that it isn’t something that happens overnight. Healing is a lifelong journey. We will never be healed until the last breath, it happens day by day and year by year.”
Kira Pooni’s advice for all is that “The process of upcoming out with your truth, it comes step by step. So I wouldn’t do it in big chunks. Don’t just drop everything and say that now I am just gonna go to the police station and am gonna go file a report. Let yourself understand your truth, speak truth to yourself first, recognize it, acknowledge it. Let yourself be in that space and feel it and then let your mind and body tell you what is right for you. And if that’s the only step you wanna take to keep it to yourselves, do that. Then if you are slowly feeling the push that you wanna take other steps then do it at that time. So a lot of people, they feel, they jump on the deep and start swimming. That's not the case. My advice is to get a support system outside your family circle because if you get an unbiased opinion, you will be able to look at what you are going through in a different perspective or even somebody who is not part of our culture, they might be able to look at what you are going through in a different light and be able to advise you maybe a little bit different than somebody your own culture. So, yeah find your sisterhood, your brotherhood and then let yourself slowly process and grieve what it is that you are trying to go through.”
I thank all the readers for supporting the Sexual Violence Prevention Organization for providing support by reading this writing. Please continue to fight for yourself, love yourself and know that your past and your trauma do not bring shame to you. are someone who is strong, who is fighting an internal battle every single day and above all, your trauma does not define who you are.
THIS STORM SHALL PASS TOO
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