A woman has bravely shared her harrowing 28-year ordeal at the hands of her stepfather, during which she was subjected to physical abuse, rape, and forced to bear six children with him.
Lydia Gouardo, now 62, lived under a reign of terror that began in 1971 when she was just eight and locked up in an attic.
Despite managing to escape from Raymond Gouardo’s clutches several times in the early years of her torment, Lydia was returned to her abuser by French authorities each time, despite the attacks leaving her with burn marks across her body from being scalded with boiling water and hydrochloric acid.
The abuse continued unabated until his death in 1999, without arousing suspicion in the quiet village of Crecy-la-Chapelle, just outside Paris.
Her stepmother, Lucienne, also abused Lydia. Lydia says the ordeal began in her childhood when her mother forced her into a scalding hot bath, resulting in third-degree burns and causing her to miss school, reports the Mirror.
Lydia decided to share her story in 2008. Speaking to French Radio RTL, she revealed she was raped “in the morning, in the evening and the night” by Raymond Gouardo.
She also claimed her stepmother, Lucienne Gouardo, was aware of the abuse and would simply tell her husband to “get on with it”.
Lucienne Gouardo received a four-year suspended prison sentence for failing to prevent the abuse, yet Lydia believes society largely ignored her appalling ordeal.
She wrote a book detailing her experiences with French journalist Jean-Michel Caradec’h called Le silence des autres (The Silence of Others), revealing she only found the strength to speak publicly after the strikingly similar Josef Fritzl case in Austria emerged the previous year.
Fritzl’s case involved imprisoning his daughter Elisabeth for 24 years, during which she endured comparable abuse and assault, bearing seven of his children.
In that instance as well, neighbours, educators and social services failed to detect the abuse or sound any warnings despite her pregnancies and wounds.
In Gouardo’s book, she expresses her desire to befriend Elisabeth so she could offer support, having endured and overcome comparable traumatic ordeals.
Nevertheless, she also condemned the French and international media for neglecting her case initially, with coverage only materialising following the Fritzl affair.
Today Gouardo resides in a small town on the outskirts of Paris, having brought up her nine children.
She dons lengthy clothing to conceal the acid burns marking her body, but states she approaches life one day at a time.
She said: “I live from day to day. But I love life. When people complain, I say life is beautiful. I am fighting back now. When a bill comes through the door, I am happy. I am here, I exist.”