My name is Rysa Lee and my younger sister, Maayimuna N’Diaye, is a survivor of International Parental Child Abduction (IPCA). Maayi was abducted to Mali, West Africa on December 27, 2011, by her father when she was 4 years old. My mother and I were fortunate to be able to go to Mali and return with her in July of 2014. IPCA is unique—most people assume that because the child is still with a parent, they must be okay. It would hurt me so much when people would assume that. It felt as though all the emotions and turmoil my family was going through were erased. Although she was with her father, there were still so many unknowns, and so many unanswered questions. While Maayi’s abduction was relatively short, that year and a half was by far the most difficult and longest time of my life. I was 14 when she was taken, and I am 26 when writing this to you. To this day, I have never felt as empty and distraught as I felt during that time. The fact that my youngest sister was across an ocean and not in the room next to me sleeping every night was incredibly painful. All the giggles, the dance parties, the make-up nights. Gone. I felt alone, angry, and broken. I would distract myself any way possible to forget what was happening around me. I would focus on band and color guard, drown out the world with music, and heavily lean on my friends to cope. However, facing those feelings was unavoidable.
When Maayi came home, life still didn’t feel “normal.” You would think that everything would return to how it was before, but that wasn’t the case. People were still asking questions and the media was still involved. Eventually that went away, but the pain and darkness was still there. What I didn’t know then was that healing takes time, and learning how to navigate through my own traumas, as well as my sister’s, proved to be the biggest adjustment for me. There would be times where I would lash out at her when she would upset me because I would take it as a personal attack. I didn’t realize that her actions stemmed from trauma. As we’ve both gotten older, I can now see that we had our own ways of processing our pain. Today, Maayi is in high school, and I am working toward starting a new organization to help youth abduction survivors find and build a network of peers who have shared similar experiences. I feel so blessed to have the opportunity to watch my sister grow into a wonderful person, student, and activist. I understand how lucky I am to have her back home with me, and I can attest personally that siblings do come home. Advocacy on IPCA has become extremely near to my heart. I have witnessed first-hand the reunification of siblings and families, and I know healing is possible no matter the outcome.
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Rysa’s Message of Hope
Finding strength in these times may be hard, but you must realize that you are more powerful than you feel right now. You may feel like you have no control over your life, and you are just going through the motions. While feeling that way is okay, I cannot stress enough how important it is to not stay in that head space. Pain can be all-consuming, and you must have a healthy outlet that can, at the very least, distract you from those dark times. One piece of advice I have is to take those emotions and create. Create art, create music, create things for yourself and others, and do what you must do to survive. You have a unique perspective on life after you have gone through something like this, and you can use it to your advantage. Your experiences are special, and you have tools to help others. Have hope and carry it with you through this. Think of hope as a fire that you must feed to prevent the light from going out. It’s not easy and you will struggle. The world is going to tell you to give up and move on, but no one can take hope away from you. Siblings do come home, and my family is living proof. I believe in you and want you to believe in yourself too.