US kidnap victim speaks out about her rape ordeal

Sydney, Oct 29 (ANI): American woman Elizabeth Smart has spoken out at a women's conference held in the United States, about the rape and kidnap ordeal she went through for nine months when she was 14.

Smart, who is now 21, had been taken from her bed in Salt Lake City, Utah, in June 2002, and she was then chained to a tree, drugged and raped almost daily by the man charged with abducting her, Brian David Mitchell.

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She was rescued in March 2003 after someone spotted her walking with Mitchell and a woman, Wanda Ileen Barzee.

But even after the horrifying ordeal she went through she has never let it pull her down or let it stop her from doing what she wanted.

"I just have never let it hold me back," the Sydney Morning Herald quoted her as telling the audience at a seminar in California entitled 'Overcoming the Unimaginable'.

"And I have gone on to do everything so far that I have wanted to do ... I think that's so important.

"We all have our trials and we all experience hard times but I don't think that we should ever let it disable us from doing what we want to do," she stated.

Smart said her family and faith got her through the dark days of her abduction and its aftermath.

"I know that we do have angels on the other side of what we don't see," she said.

"We're never truly left alone in our darkest hour," she added. (ANI)