(Jamaica Observer) Ten months after she was subjected to a dehumanising cavity search, verbal abuse, confinement, and deportation from the eastern Caribbean island of Barbados, Jamaican Shanique Myrie is still traumatised by her ordeal.
Myrie told the Sunday Observer that she is still seeking psychological help to deal with her trauma, which she says remains fresh in her mind.
“It was an awful thing that happened to me, it is not easy to get over it. I am still in therapy,” Myrie said with sadness in her voice.
Myrie’s case, which was exposed by the Sunday Observer, is now before the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ) after the law firm Hylton Brown grew impatient with what it said was the neglectful approach of the Barbadian government to the issue.
The firm said it had allowed sufficient time for both the Jamaican and the Barbadian governments to attempt to settle the matter.
“After obtaining leave of the Government of Jamaica, this firm also attempted to engage the Barbadian Government in discussions, but to no avail. Ms Myrie was therefore left with no recourse but to bring an action before the CCJ to have the important issues raised adjudicated,” the firm said in a release Friday.
Myrie had gone to Barbados to seek employment in March last year but ran into uncouth customs and immigration officials who denied her entry at the Grantley Adams Airport.
She complained that a female immigration officer ordered her to strip and conducted an illegal search of her vagina in a bid to find concealed drugs.
But even though Myrie stands the chance of collecting a huge compensation package, she says money is the furthest thing from her mind.
“The people who did this to me deserve to be punished. It was a wicked and thoughtless act,” she said.
Myrie claimed the female officer verbally abused her and accused her of trafficking drugs.
“When I bent over and spread my (private parts), I felt something enter my (private parts) and when I looked between my legs, I saw her gloved hand in my (private parts). I screamed and stood up. She then told me if I obstructed her doing a cavity search she would have me locked up. I bent over again and spread. She again inserted her fingers and poked around. I felt like I was being raped. I was so hurt and ashamed. I felt dirty and defiled,” she said then.
“I asked her who she was and she said ‘I am your worst nightmare’. She then said ‘All you (expletive) Jamaicans come here to do is either steal people’s man or bring drugs here,” Myrie told the Sunday Observer in March last year.
Myrie said she was then locked in a cold, filthy room with fecal matter on the walls, without food or drink, for hours before she was put back on a flight destined for Jamaica.
Her attorneys say she is seeking redress, including monetary damages and believes she should be compensated for the harm caused to her.
The attorneys say the case is important in building awareness among Jamaican and Caricom citizens of the obligation of Member States of Caricom to provide assurance of free movement or hassle-free travel in the region.
After Myrie came forward, other complaints of unfair treatment of Jamaicans in Barbados were unearthed, including the case of a Jamaican woman who was held with drugs and convicted, only to be raped and forced to perform oral sex on two male police officers who were allegedly aided and abetted by a female cop.
Two of the cops have since been charged while a third reportedly fled the island.
