“I experienced sexual abuse early in life—men were my mom’s thing,” Robyn explains.
The men in Robyn’s mom’s life were often dangerous and cruel. Robyn was raped for the first time when she was 9 years old. At 13, she was impregnated by a 26-year-old man who then, with her mother’s support, forced Robyn to marry him so that he would not be prosecuted for rape. He divorced her a year later. Due to Robyn’s age, the man was granted sole custody of their daughter.
Robyn was heartbroken. She says she did not want to return to her mother’s home where she might be further abused, so she went to the street and did “whatever street people do to survive.”
