This article references grooming, domestic abuse, and rape.
“I didn’t recognise what he was doing to me was abuse; I saw him as my boyfriend,” Sammy Woodhouse tells GLAMOUR. She was 14 years old when she met Arshid Hussain, ten years her senior, who groomed her and abused her mentally, physically, and sexually over the course of two years.
While Hussain was married with children, Sammy was missing from home for months at a time, as he kept her hidden in flats, hotels, and even his family home. He became “very controlling, possessive, and violent” towards her.
Although she couldn't have known it at the time, Sammy was a victim of what would later become known as the Rotherham child exploitation scandal, in which approximately 1,400 children were estimated to have been abused, with local authorities being heavily criticised for their repeated failures to act on reports of abuse.
At the age of 14, Sammy became pregnant and had an abortion. She became pregnant again at 15 years old, giving birth to her son at the age of 16. “I loved my son very much from the moment he was born,” she tells GLAMOUR.
The government has announced that children conceived as a result of rape in England and Wales will be recognised as victims of crime in their own right. The plans follow a review commissioned by the Centre for Women’s Justice, which found that between 2,080 and 3,356 children could have been conceived in rape within a single year (2021) in England and Wales alone.
The evidence review also highlighted that children born as a result of rape are at an increased risk of “suffering serious and long-term harm due to the distressing circumstances of their birth.” The mothers may feel reminded of their ordeal by their child, which can "profoundly negatively affect a child’s development and educational outcomes, as well as his/her wellbeing in adulthood.”
Sammy was 27 when she realised that she'd been a victim of abuse and that “the man [she] always thought was [her] boyfriend was actually an abuser.” She was then confronted with the challenge of telling her son how he'd been conceived but struggled as there was little support available for women and children in this situation.
“I had to tell my son the truth but wasn’t sure how. He has found things really difficult, and as there was no direct support to deal with our situation, we have felt very alone.”
When Sammy went to the police with her story, she was told there wasn't enough evidence to support her claims – they refused to take DNA from her son as evidence. Sammy recorded this meeting on her phone.
“I decided to gather all my own evidence such as police files, social care files and medical records,” she tells GLAMOUR. Sammy took this evidence to Andrew Norfolk, a reporter at The Times, who later published her story, naming Hussain, as well as the deputy leader of Rotherham Council, for his involvement in the case.
Operation Stovewood and the Alexis Jay report soon followed, highlighting the horrific scale of grooming, abuse, and exploitation, which was often ignored by those who had the power to stop it.
In 2016, Hussain was sentenced to 35 years in prison for abusing Sammy and other children.
Now, Sammy is presenting her own documentary, Watch Out of the Shadows: Born from Rape, in which she speaks to other mothers in her position, as well as children born from rape. “I learnt so much from people in the documentary,” she tells GLAMOUR.
“I don’t feel alone anymore. I have a better understanding and feel I’d be able to support my son better. The documentary has changed my life. I also realised the lack of support there actually is in our country for people like us.”
Sammy campaigned for the law to change around recognising children born of rape as victims of a crime in their own right. While she welcomes the recent announcement, she says, “It's not enough.”
“I’m calling on the government for more to be done,” she tells GLAMOUR. She sent an email to Suella Braverman, the UK's Home Secretary, outlining the following additional measures she wants the government to implement:
- "Commission products and training for statutory services on supporting and advising both mothers and children born from sexual violence.
- Consider the inclusion of people born from sexual violence as a protected characteristic under the Equality Act 2010.
- Ensure the Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority treats children born from sexual violence as eligible for awards.
- Conduct a scoping exercise to better understand the scale and circumstances of this cohort."
You can watch Out of the Shadows: Born from Rape from Wednesday, 19 April, on BBC iPlayer.
**For more information about emotional abuse and domestic violence, you can call The Freephone National Domestic Abuse Helpline, run by Refuge on 0808 2000 247. **
If you're worried someone might see you have visited this page, the Women's Aid website tells you how to cover your tracks online.
For more information about reporting and recovering from rape and sexual abuse, you can contact Rape Crisis.
If you have been sexually assaulted, you can find your nearest Sexual Assault Referral Centre here. You can also find support at your local GP, voluntary organisations such as Rape Crisis, Women's Aid, and Victim Support, and you can report it to the police (if you choose) here.
We spoke with Ellie Wilson, a campaigner for justice reform, about her experience.
