In her younger days 17-year-old Priya Dookie felt that her voice was unconsciously “taken away from me” in the name of discipline, as she was taught to be seen and not be heard and to only “answer when you are called” and “speak when you are spoken to.”
But today she will have none of that, and looking back she believes that had she been as empowered as she is now quite a few adults in her Cane Grove village would have heard from her, since in her opinion there was and still is widespread verbal violence against children.
“Growing up I would hear parents telling their children that they are good for nothing. Imagine hearing those words every day or every other day as a child; what do you think that does to the child?” the teenager asked in an interview with the Sunday Stabroek.
She now sees violence as a “public health issue…a disease that is spreading.”
“Where I am living, domestic violence and violence on the whole is very prevalent, you see it everywhere you go,” she said.
She said that verbal and emotional violence are the most prevalent forms, and that these are the most dangerous of all because the scars from them take a lifetime to be removed.
“People believe that the youths don’t understand what is going on, but they do; they are the ones who are hurt most,” she noted, adding that the worst part of it all is that parents say they are disciplining their children through these methods.
Parents are supposed to leave imprints on their children, she went on, and if they are imprinting that the child is worthless then the child would very well believe that and could grow up to become a “worthless individual.”
And she does not believe that lashes make a difference, and cited herself as a classic example of someone who became more rebellious as a result of them. But it is not a case of her not supporting corporal punishment; in her view the issue is that the line between “healthy discipline and abuse has been lost, and if we can focus back on what is healthy discipline then, yes, I support corporal punishment.”
Even though she was troubled by the everyday ‘cussing down’ of her peers and by what she saw in her school, Dookie felt she could do nothing to help until she started using the Irene Madray Recreational Arts and Resources Centre (IMRAC) library during her later years in secondary school. Exposed to the work of the centre and later becoming one of its volunteers, the aspiring social worker realized that her voice was being stifled and that she had right to speak out on the ills that were affecting herself and other youths. The centre offers after school classes to children and Dookie said she helps to teach children to read and write, because “you would find a lot of children are passing grades but they can’t read and some even don’t know how to write.”
Her work at IMRAC also involved her parents, and they have realized that she has to play her part in making society a better place.
‘Sexual bullying’
It was that urge to make a difference that saw her being the presenter of a personal study on sexual bullying at the recent one-day youth conference held by IMRAC and the Caribbean American Domestic Violence Awareness (CADVA) organization at the Pegasus. For the study Dookie distributed two hundred questionnaires among youths – one hundred in rural areas and another hundred in Georgetown – and also conducted some face-to-face interviews. She chose the rural areas and Georgetown in order to compare the different perspectives of the youths from different areas.
Dookie said she was shocked by some of the responses she received, and what was evident was that many females were unaware that they were being sexually bullied while others saw nothing wrong with it. Questionnaires were also distributed to University of Guyana students.
“In the rural areas it was noted that less that 50% of the people were aware of sexually bullying and did not know what it was… For instance they would say they never experienced sexual bullying, but later in the questionnaire they would say they were inappropriately touched, they were called demeaning names and those are forms of sexual bullying…”
The majority of the victims as stated in the questionnaires were from the rural areas and according to her figures 15% of the persons in the rural areas had not experienced sexual bullying while another 31% experienced it. However, in the final analysis 62% of the respondents had experienced sexual bullying based on their answers, even though they did not state this when asked the question directly.
She described sexual bullying as any comment or action that is intended to hurt, offend or intimidate focusing mainly on the person’s sexuality, body parts or appearance. The spreading of rumours of a sexual nature about someone is also a form of sexual bullying. Dookie was motivated to conduct the study because of what she saw in school and because many would deny that sexual harassment occurred in school.
“I have never experienced it, but I witnessed it, and it is the starting point of violence. I would see girls being touched inappropriately by boys their own age; people are called names and they are hurt real badly but no one does anything and they [the victims] don’t talk about it, and some don’t even know it is wrong,” Dookie said.
She feels that the root of the problem is the fact that people are not aware of the issue and in her opinion the conference helped to raise that awareness so that youths can understand it.
“Some of the responses from the youths were unbelievable… One of the questions on the questionnaire [was] why do you think youths would sexually harass each other, and you would not believe what some of the responses were. They believe that it was normal; one Guyanese actually felt that God gave Eve to Adam and it’s natural and that is the way it is supposed to be,” Dookie said.
Others responded that some are sexually harassed because of the way they dress, and one young man stated that the sexiness of girls urged him to touch them.
Dookie hopes to share her results with others and would be part of IMRAC’s outreach programmes. She said conducting the research has taught her much.
‘Lack of awareness’
She feels that the root cause of problems among many youths is the lack of awareness, and suggested that there be programmes in place for them to express themselves and that this could be one way of tackling many of the social ills facing them.
Before all of this, Dookie had hoped one day to become a midwife, but now her perspective of life has changed and she hasbeen inspired to move into the area of social work.
“I never knew I could have done something like this [conduct a study and present its findings], which goes to show if given the opportunity you would rise to heights you never imagined,” Dookie said, adding that she hopes schools can gave students opportunities to do more, especially in rural areas where smart and talented kids are not given the opportunities.
On the completion of her present computer studies Dookie said she would be making every effort to become a social worker because she now believes her mission is to help others.
“But I want to make sure I have a definite plan before I make a move.”
“I grew up with simple rules of minding your own business and staying out of trouble, but then I realized that you don’t gain anything by simply minding your own business… stretching out a helping hand is what you should do and that is one of the real reasons I am doing this.”
