“I was 12, in first form…”

LAST Wednesday, former American reality TV star Josh Duggar, who appeared with his large family on the TLC series 19 Kids and Counting, was sentenced to 12 1/2 years in prison after he was convicted of receiving child pornography. TLC had cancelled the series following allegations that Duggar molested four of his sisters and a babysitter years earlier. Authorities began investigating the abuse in 2006 after receiving a tip from a family friend, but concluded that the statute of limitations on any possible charges had expired.

The Associated Press reported that Duggar was then arrested in April 2021 after a Little Rock, Arkansas police detective found that child porn files were being shared by his computer. Investigators testified that images depicting the sexual abuse of children, including toddlers, were downloaded in 2019 onto a computer at a car dealership Duggar owned.

Regarding the accusation from his sisters and the babysitter, Duggar’s parents said he had confessed to ‘fondling’ and apologised. After the allegations resurfaced in 2015, the father of seven apologised publicly.

While the Duggar case shocked the world, abuse by family members and friends of the family is not an anomaly in the Caribbean context, including Jamaica, with officials having reported that sex crimes, including rape and sexual touching, are being noticeably committed in some cases by persons closely related and tied to the victims.

According to data from the 2016 Jamaica Reproductive Health Survey, one-fifth of Jamaican women reported being sexually abused before reaching 18 years of age. The main perpetrators were friends or acquaintances (22.9 per cent), strangers (16.5 per cent) and family members other than parents or siblings (15.9 per cent).

“Childhood sexual abuse is real for almost one-fifth of Jamaican women. Girls are mostly abused by someone known to them: a friend or acquaintance. Left to choose, the majority of women have their first sexual experience after the age of 15 years. [But] young teenage girls enter into sexual activity reluctantly,” the report explained.

What has been the experience for women who have been abused by someone with responsibility to protect? The two women we spoke with, who are using their middle names for privacy, explain their abuse by relatives, and what their life is like now.

Leitha, 46, married mother of one:

You know how with trauma you block out entire swathes of your memory? That’s what happened with me. It was when I was much older in fact that I could identify that it was abuse, and see that there was something wrong with it. I would have been about five or six, and when my mom would go to work, my older sister would be left in charge of my siblings and I, as well as my cousins. One was an older boy cousin, a teen at the time, probably 17 or 18. We would play ‘dolly house’ daily, and of course we’d have to dramatise being mom and dad, and he was the dad and I was the mom. He had to know better, had to know it wasn’t right. But I’ll just say that we’d be on my parents’ bed, role playing, and there was always, always him on top of me, humping. As I said it was years later when I was doing my master’s that I reflected on what had happened, and wondered why he’d think it was OK, and why my older sister would have allowed these games. Our whole family is now fractured, not because of this though, and so we hardly see each other anymore. But when I do see him at the occasional wedding or funeral, I wonder if he remembers too, or has any feelings either way about it. I’ve had a lot of relationships that ended because the men said I was “cold”, and I have a hard time with trust, but my marriage is OK, and I’m a protective mom.

Michelle, 37, married mother of three:

I was 12, in first form, and my parents were moving to another parish and I didn’t want to change schools, so they arranged for me to stay with my older married cousin’s divorced dad and his kids. Things were OK for a while, even though I thought he was quite formidable and mean and miserly. One night he called me to his room, asked about school, and whether my parents were sending me money for school regularly, offered me money to do my hair, sat me down on the bed to ‘talk’, and then pushed me down and shoved his tongue in my mouth. I still remember every second — the nasty saliva, the nasty taste, the nasty smell, and how shocked I was that this man, this church man, was doing this. I guess his sanity came back and he stopped, and continued the conversation like nothing happened, then said he was going to bed, but I could come back to ‘talk’ whenever I wished. I’ve never told anyone except my husband (who was shocked at the way I calmly related the story, by the way), and I stayed at the house until fourth form, but it never happened again. In fifth form my parents moved back, and that ended my living situation with him. I don’t remember how I coped those three years to be honest, other than staying out of his way and pretending to be studying or sleeping when he’d come home at night. But I did pay myself back somewhat by helping myself to money from the plenty he saved in a dresser drawer each time he’d leave, because I felt I deserved it. Today I’m no longer in that parish, and last time I saw him was at a family event years ago. He still goes to church, and still acts like nothing happened. I raise my kids with an eagle eye, as no one will ever get the chance to get that close to them, and there will never be any camps or sleepovers or summer holidays away with family for my kids.

“Child sexual abuse should never be ignored, because one of the most profound effects it can have on the victim is the inability to form and maintain close, loving relationships,” explained counsellor David Anderson.

“For some victims, the abuse also damages their relationships with the rest of the family, as they may feel that because the perpetrator was close to them, or well loved, they can’t confess, or they may have disclosed the abuse they suffered and felt that they were not believed.”

He said child sexual abuse can also have a profound psychological effect that lasts into adult life, and it is linked with a plethora of problems including low self-esteem and mental health conditions.

“It’s important for victims to come forward and seek help, so they can deal with the negative feelings that are bound to be a factor,” Anderson advised.