Dear Editor,
At least it is a start and perhaps a precedent — the jailing of the mother in St Lucia for ignoring her daughter’s complaint of rape. Let us hope that, now “motherless”, the girl is not exposed to further abuse, perhaps of a different kind.
Now that the subject of child abuse is being thoroughly ventilated, there seems to be no end to these horror stories. A few years ago a relatively young woman, now herself a mother, told me that she and her two sisters were raped by their stepfather while they were still at school.
They complained to their mother, who seemed powerless to do anything about it, because he was the sole breadwinner in the family. Theirs was a very unfortunate case, because he infected all of them with a sexually transmitted disease. A suspicious neighbour alerted the Social Services to what she felt was going on, they intervened and he was eventually given a prison sentence. All the women bear the psychological scars to this day.
In the mid-80s I worked with a colleague who was the mother of a very polite 12-year-old daughter. The girl always seemed withdrawn and never smiled. My colleague had divorced the child’s father and married a chap much younger than herself. He was nice looking and friendly but had a disturbing habit of constantly avoiding eye contact when holding a conversation, speaking instead to feet or shoes — his or the person’s. I had my suspicions about him and why the child seemed so subdued, but in those days the term ‘child abuse’ was seldom heard. When a telephone service which encouraged youngsters to speak frankly about abuse in the home was introduced, the truth emerged.
The girl was the victim of his unwelcome attention. We were never able to establish whether the mother was aware of the situation, because she was frequently complaining about the girl’s ‘stubbornness’.
Yours faithfully,
Geralda Dennison