JAMAICAN women who have returned to their homes after spending jail-time overseas for drug trafficking say they are faced with the trauma of coping with sexually molested and abused children and promiscuous and rebellious teenagers.

Twenty-five women, who all served their time for drug trafficking, told a parenting workshop at the Jamaica Federation for Women in Kingston Monday that their children were displaying behaviours which called for more than the parenting skills they presently possess.

“Mi just don’t know what else to try,” said one frustrated mother who said her daughter’s promiscuity had gotten out of control. She said despite her attempts to have her daughter counselled, the behaviour has continued.

Several of the mothers, mostly single parents, said they had been abandoned by the children’s fathers and had no help to rear the children.

They said, too, that since their return they were unable to connect with their children, especially with the boys, some of whom have ‘gone silent’, the women claimed.

Sanya Ellis, the acting Co-ordinator for convenors, Hibiscus Jamaica Limited, an arm of the London-based Female Prisoners Welfare Project for women incarcerated in London as well as female ex-prisoners and their children, told the Observer that the parenting workshops were developed because it was found that when most women returned to the island their parenting skills needed to be sharpened.

“.Some of the children are traumatised by them having left them so long; so we realise that they are unable now to deal with some of the issues that their children face and we want to make them better parents so we have the seminars in hope that they would be able to learn something and be better able to deal with the children,” Ellis told the Observer.

She said the current session, which is a week long, will see some children being counselled as well. The intention is to use the series as a pilot to identify individuals in need of counselling so they can be referred, she said.

“This is really to identify those clients who are in need of counselling and thereafter we intend to refer them to professional counsellors,” Ellis added.

According to Ellis, about 98 per cent of the women who return to the island after being incarcerated on drug charges in the United Kingdom are parents and most face the same circumstances upon return.

“Almost all of them come back and they are faced with similar issues, the withdrawal of a daughter, teenage pregnancy, the gangs, promiscuity and they are so uncertain as to what they are coming back to and how to deal with some of these issues so we feel it is necessary to have sensitization seminars like this one for them,” she said.

In addition to encouraging and providing opportunities for further academic advancement and training, Ellis said Hibiscus, through its Anti-drug Education Campaign, is sensitising the school population about the dangers involved in drug running.

One participant, Winsome Morrison, who was incarcerated in London for three years, said the information provided by the seminar would help to renew her relationship with her 15-year-old son.

“I think this will help me to get around the various sides of him that I can’t see right now because is like him lock off. Anything happen is like im nuh really tell mi, mi have to dig into him and seh ‘tell mi how it go’, something is bogged down in this little boy and in the future mi hope to get it out of him; mi really need to know what happening to mi child,” she said.

“Mi stay away for three years and mi an him fada break up because of di prison ting and I think this is one of the main thing that keep him locked in,” she added.