The tales of Guyanese women are not primarily shocking horror stories. Faith in the compassion of our people compels me to believe that the experiences of most Guyanese women are not shaped by trauma. But we cannot ignore that sinister shadows hover over many Guyanese girls. In an attempt to find their light again, they must often divorce those shadowy figures, especially when they are people they would have loved and trusted. Their stories have revealed that in many instances there are constant efforts to erase the occurrences from their minds. But they often cannot control those memories and so they must pretend that they are fiction. Throughout their successes and failures, the shadows encroach, in an attempt to turn their joys into sorrows and their happiness into pain; determined to steal any chance they have of normal lives. And too often they remain trapped by the silence of our culture; deceased long before their physical bodies die.
Too many young girls, and older ones who are trapped in the bodies of the women they have become, are struggling with the effects of the dysfunction that shaped their lives. Little girls, whose childhoods should have been spent dancing with their mothers and fathers, their first heroes, are trying to forget the unsolicited bodies on their bodies and the betrayal of those who should have been their protectors.