Victims Don’t Owe Us Their Trauma Stories
- Eloise Stark
- Jul 14
- 5 min read
Updated: Jul 27
Israel did not allow foreign journalists into the Gaza Strip as it carried out its genocide. In their absence, every person with internet access became a war correspondent. Civilians filmed their ruined homes; fathers stood for photos holding plastic bags containing the remains of their children. A little girl named Renad shared Instagram Reels of recipes made from the rations received in aid packages.
Like most of the Western world, or at least those who frequent the same algorithm bubble as I do, I watched helplessly. And I asked myself: how much of their daily horror must the inhabitants of Gaza share before we believe them? It is a question that struck me doubly hard, because I am a journalist and was trained to seek out victims’ stories for my articles. But I am also a survivor of sexual assault. I know firsthand that sharing a story never comes without a cost.
I've worked as a freelance journalist for print media and documentaries for the past seven years, reporting on social issues, overlooked communities and women's rights. It's taken me from Rohingya refugees in the slums of New Delhi to Coptic garbage collectors in Cairo; from activist artists in Cuba to farmers branded as terrorists in Georgia; from survivors of domestic abuse in the UK to refugees hiking across high Alpine passes to reach France. It has involved interviewing many, many people about the hardest things in their lives.
Over the course of my career, it has become increasingly difficult to justify asking people to sacrifice their privacy when the truth doesn’t seem to have much of an impact. Journalistic conventions shift the burden of proof onto the oppressed, forcing them to beg for our empathy, and getting little in return.
“Human Interest”
In journalism school, it was drummed into us, as an unquestionable tenet, that our job was to seek out the stories and voices of those most impacted by current affairs. The cynical side of me remembers professors describing these voices as “human interest” that added “colour” to our copy. But we students weren’t cynical; we believed we were pursuing some higher mission, "giving voice to the voiceless." We believed these stories needed to be told. We believed revealing the truth to be an end unto itself.
The ethics got a lot murkier in the field. People would tell me horrible things that had happened to them; my eyes would water, but my heart would beat faster because I knew I had a great soundbite. As time went on and I conducted enough of these interviews, tragedies began to blur. The tears stopped coming, but not the racing heart. I took the words; I packaged them. In the words of bell hooks, I “consumed the other”. In fact, I served them to the reader on a silver platter of self-righteousness.
I remember travelling to a village in Maharashtra, India, during a drought. I was there to interview a woman who had lost her husband to suicide, after several failed harvests had left him crippled by debt. She answered our questions in tears and on camera. She relived her trauma for us, hoping that we could help, or at least give money. But journalism school also taught me that it is unethical to pay our sources, that they must be motivated only by that same thirst for truth. My interviewee had more practical concerns, as the earth cracked and the monsoon failed to arrive. She told her story because she thought we could help her. We filmed, then left, and did not help at all.
Speaking Up
Of course, there can be liberation in telling your own story. It is the premise of talking therapy. It is something I have done in many forms through my writing. But it is a very different thing to decide to exorcise your experience when you hold the agency, and to have it demanded of you directly or through a massive power imbalance.
In Gaza, civilians did not post their stories for likes, followers, or therapeutic exhortation. They shared their everyday life because they hoped to testify to their situation, to change public opinion in the countries supplying weapons to Israel. The cruel thing is that they still were not believed. Years into the conflict, discourse online claimed that “crisis actors” were overplaying the humanitarian crisis in Gaza. They said there were no “reliable” sources, that there was no famine, only Hamas propaganda.’
The words of oppressed groups never carry as much weight as the words of those in power. It is the same double bind that professor and writer Leigh Gilmore describes in Tainted Witness as faced by survivors of sexual assault. If you remain silent, you are saying that nothing is wrong. If you speak up, your words are scrutinised. First-hand experience of trauma is the only expertise that women and marginalised groups are allowed to bring to the table. And even that expertise is promptly torn to shreds.
I have had many arguments with men about the prevalence of sexual assault. I would mention incidents that happened to me, and they would reply with questions and remarks. What were you wearing? Why were you walking through the station alone at that time? Are you sure you actually said no? He was probably drunk too. Next time, call a friend. Don’t go hitchhiking. Don’t go to that place, with those clothes, at that time.
There is something deeply dehumanising about mobilising your trauma to advocate for your gender, only to have it picked apart. There is something deeply traumatising in sharing your experiences with someone who treats your bodily autonomy as a thought experiment or views the existence of your home as a historical debate. I learned this the hard way, and on a personal level, I stopped sharing my story. I don’t owe it to anyone.
A Better Truth
As a journalist, however, I am still trying to find the right path. Working out how to inform so that trauma does not go unspoken and unchallenged, without retraumatisating someone or capitalising on their pain.
There are plenty of ways to do this, if we break with journalistic conventions. We can rely on second-hand sources, testimonies collected by NGOs or legal institutions, that have greater reasons to collect stories than simply selling them. We could enforce strict anonymity for all testimonies, so that people are not permanently defined by their worst days. We can use composite, fictionalised narratives based on true events, and inform the reader of our choice.
Sometimes, we can tell the story without interviewing the victims at all. In October 2025, Yale University’s Humanitarian Research Lab used satellite imagery to reveal mass killings in Sudan, a country undergoing a civil war, and with strict limitations on reporting.
Journalists and consumers of media need to acknowledge that victims do not owe us their stories. We do not need them to understand the facts of oppression, and frankly, until we learn to believe marginalised people the first time, we do not deserve them.
This article has been sponsored by the Psychiatry Research Trust, who are dedicated to supporting young scientists in their groundbreaking research efforts within the field of mental health. If you wish to support their work, please consider donating.
