Janet Moore (left) shares a tender moment with Kadian Rhoden, one of her three daughters, after they and Moore's two other daughters were chopped by Moore's common-law husband, Wilfred Rhoden, last December. (Observer photo)

SIX year-old Lisa Durrant appears to be a normal child. She is playful, chatty and giggly as most children her age. But each time the familiar red and black uniform of a Jamaican policeman comes in sight, the little girl transforms into a fretful, cowering and weepy child, according to relatives.

Last October, Lisa's father, Seymour "Vibrations" Durrant, was shot dead by the police in Zion Hill, St Catherine and her relatives believe the child has not yet recovered from the trauma of the incident.
"When she see the police, whether on the road or on TV, she say, 'see the police deh who kill me father'. She just a tremble so and start cry," Michelle Mills, mother of the normally vibrant six year-old tells the Sunday Observer.

Standing beside a monument erected on the spot where her child's father was killed eight months ago, Mills points out that the deceased left behind seven children, five of them girls. His death has affected his children in different ways, but with one common problem - all have been getting lower grades in school.
The trauma being experienced by Lisa and her siblings is not unique, says psychologist, Osbourne Bailey, who suggests that many of the nation's children bear permanent emotional scars because of the hangover of violence.
"Violence inadvertently affects your sense of worth. We work with kids and parents to help them ease the pain," adds Bailey.

Bailey is the senior co-ordinator at the state-run Victim Support Programme (VSP), a counselling agency set up to assist victims of violence, and which deals first hand with the devastating effects of violence on children, especially when they suffer the loss of a loved one.
"Many crimes are committed against children too, notably sexual and physical abuse. Children are also being used to commit crimes," Bailey says in explaining the vicious circle of violence against and among the nation's young.

At the VSP, children are given psychological counselling and play-therapy to take their minds off the tragedy that they sometimes witness first-hand. Since the programme came on stream in 1997, the service has been utilised by an average of 500 victims who turn up every week at the 13 branches of the VSP, .
"We see up to 500 new clients weekly and up to 10,000 persons per year," Bailey calculates.
Depending on the strength of the individual, therapy can last for years. Sometimes affected persons fall through the cracks and turn to substance dependency or sink into long-term depression, experts say.

"We have had clients for up to three years. We take them in for as long as it takes," Bailey discloses. "We have had a few clients who we couldn't help and we had to refer them elswhere."
The experience is the same for Gloria Walters, counsellor at the Family Life Ministries. "They may never fully recover. It depends on the person and the emotional support they have around them," she tells the newspaper. "Individuals react differently and some even turn to drugs."

Walters cites the example of one seven year-old male child who saw his father shot by gunmen. He was so badly affected, he took out his grief on his schoolmates by beating them up daily. As a result, the boy had to be removed from school.
"The boy lost his father and was very angry. He fought at school every day. He had to take anger management classes but eventually had to leave school as a result of the bitterness that built up in him," Walters reveals.

Adults, too, are victims of violence and for some, counselling sessions have helped them restore some degree of normality to their lives, although getting over the pain of a loved one's loss is always difficult.
Pearline Burke, whose mentally challenged son, Tyrone Taylor, 19, was slaughtered in the Rock Hall Square in St Andrew last September, can attest to the benefits of counselling. Crestfallen and defeated by the reality of losing her son, Burke started taking counselling sessions at the VSP.

"The counselling really helps me a lot as it has been hard for me," Burke admits. Despite her best efforts, the sad memory of her son's death lingers, and in order to maintain her sanity, Burke says she tries to be in the company of others most of the time.
"Sometimes I can't sleep and I get sad. When I am alone, I think a lot of bad things, but when I am among other people I cope much better," Burke adds.
Not faring so well is a young woman who has not yet got over the effects of a brutal gang rape that was committed on her two years ago. She confesses that she has grown bitter and withdrawn.

"Twenty-seven men gang-raped me. They took me from my office at gunpoint. I am very hurt and sometimes I blame myself. It is very hard to live with, as I think that I am unclean and I hate myself. I will never get over it fully," admits the young woman who asked not to be named.
Some of the men who had been accused of committing the brutal sex crime were apprehended by the police. But according to the rape victim, her experience in court only added to the trauma.
"The lawyer made me feel like a slut in court. He tried to convince the court that I was guilty for them doing such a terrible thing to me. I hate him and all men," she declares.

One 17 year-old male, who also chose to remain anonymous, has become a perpetrator of the violence he experienced as a youth. The teenager, who lost both his parents after gunmen invaded their home and shot them dead in full view of himself and his two younger siblings, claims to be heartless.
"Me nuh have no heart and will kill a man if him diss. People never show no mercy when them brand me parents as informer," the bitter young man hisses in an interview with the newspaper.
The incident happened when the youngster was only 12 and as a result he and his siblings became wards of the state. There began a life of bitterness which eventually turned into crime.

"We couldn't understand why we did have to face such a tough life. We lose wi mother and wi father one time and all now my little sister no get over it," the teenager relates. "Me carry revenge in my heart for the killer them and as soon as me get a chance me get a gun," he says. "Me learn the wicked ways of the street and that's all me know. Only the baddest man have the respect and me nah plan fi dead like my father, who people say was a church man," he adds with a glint of sadness in his eyes.

According to the bitter teenager, counselling will not have a positive effect on him. "That can't help me. Them want come tell me about forgiveness and them thing deh and that a fi church people."
Janet Moore, who was attacked and stabbed by her common-law husband, Wilfred Rhoden, who then turned on his three daughters and attacked them with a machete before hanging himself, seems to have found strength in her adversity.
She claims to be rebuilding her and her children's lives without professional help.

Moore's 16 year-old daughter had her two hands severed at the wrist during the attack in Kingston last December, while her two younger daughters - aged nine and six - were chopped in the head and lost at least two fingers each. Moore, who was stabbed in the chest and under the armpit with a large kitchen knife, says she has not been to counselling.
"I don't go to any counselling," Moore informs the Sunday Observer. "I tell the girls they are not the only ones who are like that and that they have to go on with life."

Trousers in Denim

Cream of the 'Crop'

Cheeky's World