“When my mother left I was small. My father use to beat her up and she left me and my sister and took the three boys. Next door to my father we had a distant uncle and he use to ask for me to come and help he sweep. He use to carry me in this bedroom and I can still remember this bed, it use to be in the middle of the room and it was made of straw. And is dah bed he would put me and do his thing.”
This is how a mother of three described the sexual abuse she endured as a child.
“I read about the other women and I wanted to talk too and since you don’t have to give your identity I want to tell my story too,” she said. “But I hope it would not take long because I have my children with me and they hungry, they want go and get lunch,” she said, looking anxiously at the two young boys who were seated nearby.
I asked her what she meant by her uncle ‘use to do his thing’.