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She was raped twice in Bali and she has a message for other women.

An Australian woman raped twice in Bali is seeking justice for her attacker who remains at large.

Warning: This post deals with sexual assault and may be upsetting for some readers.

For 19-year old Audrey Pekin Christmas will never be the same. It will serve as a reminder of the devastating rape she endured last year while on holiday in Bali.

It was Christmas Eve and a young Australian woman was holidaying in Bali with her mother and sister. She decided to meet up with a group of friends at the Bounty Bar in Kuta. Her mother stayed behind to look after her sick younger sister.

Audrey Pekin

Audrey, a bright, vivacious well spoken woman met up with a man she had chatted to while shopping several days earlier. The night was full of energy, the place buzzing.

He said his name was Henry and that he was on holiday in Bali from South Africa. It turned out he was actually a Nigerian national who was there with friends on visa violations, and that he was about to turn her life upside down.

Audrey had a few drinks with Henry then, being Christmas Eve decided to accompany him to a party he said was on at a villa.

She told A Current Affair she felt safe, that he was a gentleman and that she, being gay, had no interest in him. She says he did not express any interest in her, in fact she says he wondered whether he was gay himself.

A Current Affair showed CCTV which showed the young woman stopping off at her hotel to ring her mother to let her know she was safe and headed off with friends after her mobile phone had died. Her mother then satisfied her daughter was okay.

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Together Henry and Audrey jumped in a taxi which Henry directed to a villa. While in the cab Audrey says she began to feel ill. She is a diabetic and she was experiencing low blood sugar levels. She told A Current Affair she could hardly think straight due to her illness.

After arriving at a small house, Henry locked the door and attacked her.

“He went from a man to a monster”

Audrey says “He went from a man to a monster.”

“I can’t quite describe the feeling, the sadness, to know what was about to happen and that I would or could not have done anything to stop it.”

“I was literally shaking and drooling… I threw some very feeble punches, but I could not move my arms…I could not move anything.”

After the attack she managed to run escaping the villa and running down the street begging locals for help.

She finally flagged down a taxi but Henry jumped in as well.

Here a second brutal rape took place.

“He kept trying to kiss me… he molested me in the back of the taxi for everyone, for the taxi driver, to see”

“He wouldn’t stop.”

When the taxi arrived in Kuta she escaped but he chased her taunting her.

She says she finally heard the voice of an Australian man and she called for help. The man stepped in to stop Henry from pursuing her while another Indonesian man accompanied her back to her hotel.

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Here her sister found her collapsed and along with her mother rushed her to hospital.

Audrey Pekin is speaking out to warn other women.

She is speaking out in the hopes that no one else goes through what she did and in the quest to get justice. Justice she deserves. Justice her family deserves.

But justice that does not seem to be forthcoming.

Audrey wants justice.

In a terrible twist the next day, Christmas Day Audrey had to undergo a virginity test. In order to charge anyone with rape in Indonesia, police require a medical report confirming the extent of the injuries.

Bravely Audrey has recounted the ordeal in her interview “The test was horrible, the test to me was a third assault. It was invasive, it was painful.”

The test proved beyond doubt that Audrey had been raped, but that she had also been infected with a sexually transmitted disease.

For Audrey this was the news that nearly broke her.

“It is something I have to live with for the rest of my life that is truly upsetting.”

She says it is “one of the most disgusting part about all of this.”

Determined to find the attacker Audrey and her family tracked down Henry through Facebook. Here they confirmed that the man was not South African but a Nigerian named Henry Alafu.

That day while she recovered in hospital he kept messaging Audrey asking her to “hang out.”

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Henry Alafu (A Current Affair)

Her father, who had flown in to Bali to be worth his family said he was frustrated that police did not attempt to arrest Alafu even though they had tracked down his phone number, his Facebook account which had photos uploaded of Alafu and Audrey and his address.

The family of Audrey say it took 18 days until after the attack before police made any attempt to arrest Henry Alafu.

They then arrested four of his friends on visa violations, but Alafu had fled.

Police tracking showed he had gone through Jakarta on to Nigeria.

Audrey says Bali is lawless.

The Pekin family says they paid more than $14,000 in legal fees over four days to proceed with the case, and that Audrey spent 15 hours giving evidence to police where they continuously questioned her sexuality.

But that nothing was done. Audrey says Bali is a lawless place.

“It’s hard to know who to trust anymore,” Audrey told A Current Affair.

“It’s just so hard to get justice here.”

The Pekin’s say that Interpol was only notified last week that Henry Alafu is a wanted man. For them this isn’t good enough. None of it is good enough.

“I was raped and assaulted and the Australian government has done nothing about it,”

“Shame won’t do anything for me, shame won’t get him arrested. Anger and persistence will.”

 

If this brings up issues for you or you need to speak to someone help is available.Please call 1800 RESPECT (1800 737 732) – the national sexual assault, domestic and family violence counselling service. It doesn’t matter where you live, they will take your call and, if need be, refer you to a service closer to home.

 

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