Dear Editor,
I guess some things never change. I have just been reading the bloggers’ comments in regard to the Antigua-based Guyanese who abused his young daughter. So many people have expressed surprise and disgust and one asked: “How can a man have sex with a 13 year old and a child that is his own?”
Such things have been going on for a very long time. In the 1930s, as a 7-year old, in a class of children of similar age, a classmate’s mother had recently given birth to a son. During morning ‘recreation’ time, in the playground, we would enquire about her baby brother and how he was coming along.
One day, to our surprise and amusement, she told us about her father’s behaviour towards her since her mother’s confinement. Think lollipops! At that age, the sophisticated word ‘oral’ had not yet entered our vocabulary. We found it difficult to believe her ‘tales,’ giggled, then continued with our games
.
She was a ‘posh’ girl, her father a pillar of the community − a professional. She tried to brief us daily, but we soon became bored, preferring to play skip-rope or rounders. I can now imagine what that poor girl − today a great-grandmother − went through.
Alas, such behaviour is not confined to race, class or geographical factors. I agree some folk are “just sick, sick, sick.”
Yours faithfully,
Geralda Dennison
