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"He tells me don't cry, you're too pretty to cry, and he touches my face," said Tania Spencer.

KHOU

Tania Spencer had never shared her secret -- until now.

It's a story of alleged sexual abuse, which she hasn't spoken about - not even with her husband -- until now. We sat down with Spencer to hear first hand her account of being raped while in the custody of the Texas Youth Commission. She says the assaults were committed by TYC staff.

"It can be a lot easier if I participate, or it can be a lot harder, and I won't have no one," said Spencer.

We checked and confirmed that in the mid '90s at the age of 16, Spencer spent several months at TYC.

She said her complaints to officials fell upon deaf ears -- dampened by the kind of institutional ambivalence that says the word of a young juvenile offender is simply not to be trusted.

"Cause we already have the dirt on you so, therefore, you're either going to behave and do what you're told, or there's gonna be consequences," Spencer said she was told.

Last week, following hundreds of similar complaints, the Texas Senate unanimously approved an overhaul of the state's juvenile justice system. It's something Ministry of Justice activist Sadiya Evangelista calls long overdue.

"We're talking about human rights, common decency, and we're leading our children to slaughter," said Evangelista.

Whatever happens now comes too late for those who have long suffered in silence -- and who can never reclaim what, they say, TYC ripped away.

"When you see a little girl and she's got glitter in her eyes, that whole thing is gone, it's not there anymore."

Spencer is now the mother of three small children.

She says she's breaking her silence now because she doesn't want anyone else to go through what happened to her.

Spencer's attorney is considering legal action against the TYC.