TRAUMA DUMPING: ‘I still remember how he smelled…’

PUBLISHED research supports an uncomfortable fact many of us already knew: that the age of first sexual initiation for Jamaican females is somewhere around eight to 13 years old; that the perpetrators are usually within the family, close to the family, or people in positions of power; and that this initiation often leads to issues with behaviour, perception about normalcy, and self-esteem later in life.

Just ask any woman, and she probably won’t have to dig far in her memory to remember that first instance of sexual terror.

Here are six of their stories, identifying their abusers.

Isabelle, 20:

He was my neighbour. This would have been between age six and eight. I also just recently told my mother, and she was devastated. My mother, a single mother, worked very long hours and my neighbour (his common-law wife) offered to babysit me for free, to save her the cost of paying a nanny. She did this until I was about nine. Her man would call me in his room to “watch TV”, and he would touch me. My mom said my neighbour would say how much he loved me, and he was always buying stuff for me. When I reached nine I started to shun him, and asked not to go back there. My mother thought it was just pre-teen angst, but she then started to take me to work with her. No one knew, and I recently felt comfortable enough to tell my mom. She never suspected a thing.

Narine, 22:

He was one of the church leaders. I was a little girl, in the junior dance ministry. He was one of the people who would come with us to different churches to perform. I would see him looking while we were changing, and he took a special liking to me, and one day, cornered me in the changing room and put his tongue in my mouth. When I turned a teenager and told my mom that I no longer believed in God and didn’t want to go back to church, she didn’t understand. I eventually told her, and neither of us go to church anymore. This man is still working with the youth to my knowledge.

Paula, 45:

My siblings dad who was not really my stepdad, because him and my mom never married, but he stayed close to the family. I was the youngest, in first form, and my mom was going abroad to work, so we all had to be split up. I went with my siblings to live with their dad. He treated me OK, until he started calling me to his room to “talk”. One day he pushed me on the bed and started to kiss me. It was the grossest thing. He apologised after, but as revenge, I would go into his wallet and take cash when I needed it. I still remember how he smelled and how gross it was to this day. He’s an elder in church by the way, but God did curse him with cancer.

Nordia, 35:

This was my sister’s husband. They were separated, and had a child, so I’d be the one to take their son for weekend visits with the dad. The visits were nice, and he treated us well. One weekend he drove us to the river and while there, in the water, he put his finger down there, and when I screamed, had the audacity to say that it was just a finger. I was traumatised. I was probably 12 or 13. I’ve never said anything to anyone, because not only was he related to people I love, but he was big in church, and no one would believe me.

Georgia, 24:

My older sister’s boyfriend. He was married and she was the side chick, which made it worse. He started by making little comments here and there about how I was developing, and then one day when she wasn’t home, he came by, and was watching TV. I was in my room and he called me to come watch, and when I went in the living room, porn was on the TV. He told me to stop acting so scared, pulled down his pants, and said I should re-enact what I saw there. I ran back to my room. I was 10.

Kerry-Ann, 37:

The taxi driver who was a friend of my family’s. He would look out for me after school, at a time when hardly anyone wanted to bring home schoolers. He would always insist that I sit in front, and then would pass my stop, and then drop everyone home first. It started with him acting like touching my leg was a mistake (he drove a stick shift), and then he proceeded, over a few weeks, to start touching more demandingly. Even when I’d try to hide him out, he would find me. Finally, one afternoon he tried to pull my uniform skirt up, and I jumped out of the car so fast, that I ended up slamming the door on my finger. I remember distinctly that I had just entered grade seven, so I would have been just 11 years old.