The Malayalam film industry is rocked by sexual assault allegations against prominent actors and filmmakers as more and more women are sharing their harrowing experiences of sexual abuse in the wake of the release of the Justice Hema Committee report. Sowmya is also one of these brave women, who came forward and opened up on how she was 'groomed as a sex slave' and raped by a Tamil director when she was just 18 years old.
Sowmya has worked with three films in Malayalam film industry in the 1990s. These include Neelakurukkan (1992), Advaitham (1992), and Poochakkaru Mani Kettum (1994). In these movies, she worked with superstars including Mohanlal, Revathy, Mukesh, and Jayaram.
In a recent interview with NDTV, Sowmya revealed in detail how she was mentally, physically, and sexually assaulted by a Tamil director. Sharing how she met the filmmaker, the actress said, "I was 18 and in my first year of college... I came from a very sheltered background and my parents knew nothing about movies. This opportunity (to act in a Tamil film) came through my college theatre contact. As a child I was enamoured by the actor Revathy, who lived near my house at that time...I was in a fantasy world. So I went for a screen test with this couple. I was a child, I didn't know much."
Sowmya added that the director had arm-twisted her family to let her act in his film, saying he had spent huge sum on her screen test. "I wasn't comfortable with the man. I said this at my first meeting. During the first outdoor shoots he didn't speak to me. The agreement was that his wife would be the director but that was on paper, in reality he was directing the whole movie", she added.
Continuing how the filmmaker "groomed her as a sex slave", the actress shared, "One fine day, when his wife wasn't around, this man, while calling me his daughter, kissed me. I completely froze. I was so desperate to tell my friends but couldn't. I was ashamed, thinking I had done something wrong and that I was obligated to be nice to this man."
"So I continued going for practice, for dance rehearsals. Every day I went back and gradually, step by step, this man completely used my body to his advantage. At some point he forced himself on me so he raped me. This went on for close to a year while I was in college. It took 30 years for me to heal and recover from this sense of 'shame'. I encourage survivors to report all such abuse", Sowmya concluded.
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