Dear Editor,
I share Mr Shawn Mangru’s urgent concern that “Dealing with sexual abuse of children should be a priority” (SN Jan., 10, 2007). Indeed, as Mr Mangru says, “Let us as a society, as one people, direct our unreserved fury and vociferous agitation against these more serious and urgent forms of ‘child abuse’. Let us pool our energies and resources to stop our children from being sexually, physically and mentally abused.”
The trouble is that very few persons have the courage to discuss and handle the sexual abuse of children since so many were themselves victims of abuse when they were children. In openly discussing sexual abuse, those persons would be mentally re-living their past horror and so they prefer to remain silent on the subject. As such they find it very difficult to empathize with present-day victims. Only those who have managed to resolve the mental trauma and psychological conflicts of their own abused childhood or those who have never been abused are able to address the matter. Perhaps this is why whenever I write a letter on the sexual abuse of children, no one responds, but when I write against corporal punishment, it’s like kicking a red ants nest. Let’s see how many will respond to this. None of us remember the abuse that was meted to us as children before we became self-aware, but our bodies do remember and those unconscious memories are the roots of adult neuroses and psychoses. While girls, in the main, are the victims of sexual abuse, boys have frequently been victims also. I have been told of a practice called “bruking in he cutlass” where an adult female ‘introduces’ a prepubescent boy to sexual intercourse. This is sexual abuse.
What Mr Mangru did not mention in his letter is that many abusive adults use corporal punishment or the threat of it to silence children whom they sexually abuse. Abusive teachers have been known to do this. Even if a child brings a complaint of sexual molestation against an adult, the child runs the risk of being beaten by his/her parents (whether or not they are the abuser) for daring to accuse the molester. “How you can say that of your uncle! You wicked child! You bad! You bad!” Then the child is beaten and learns the lesson that what was done to her was not bad; it was for her own good. According to a Stabroek News report (October 20, 2004), a 13-yr-old girl, who was sexually assaulted by her stepfather, “reported the molestation to her mother who beat her saying she was lying.” The sexually traumatized child was further traumatized by corporal punishment. This is not an uncommon occurrence. To find out more about child abuse in Guyana, read “Voice of Children: Experiences with violence” at http://www.sdnp.org.gy/ csoc/childviolreport. pdf and “Child abuse in schools significant – survey” athttp://www.sdnp.org.gy/ hands/ hsevents/ cabuseart.html.
When I was a small boy, my nana (maternal grandfather) once beat me with his belt for a crime I cannot recall. Later, when I was much older, my mother told me it was because I was taught to curse by a Christian priest and a Muslim family friend. My nana beat the wrong person. And I have not lost the ability to curse.
Yours faithfully,
M. Xiu Quan-Balgobind-Hackett
