“I know I made a big mistake and every day I am sorry. I really can’t explain and there is no excuse,” she said, tears streaming down her face.
The ‘big mistake’ this mother made was have the rape charge against the man who violated her daughter discontinued and return to the union. Months later it was discovered that the man sexually abused the child again. She has now left the union and is living in protective custody, fighting to save the only home her three children know.
As she spoke to me she wept; her pain was evident, and she also seemed ashamed.
“I want to share my experience as it relates to domestic violence and my experience for the past years, but it has actually been affecting me more for the past months. It is like my entire life has been turned upside down, not just my life but my children’s lives because they are greatly affected,” she said to me when I asked her why she wanted us to talk.
She was a mother of one some years ago when she met the man she thought was her prince charming. He swept her off her feet and they were wed one year after they met. She bore him two daughters, but he violated her eldest daughter in the most horrific way. She was independent when she met him, so it was not a case of her needing support; it was simply that she fell in love.
“When I knew him I was already established. I had my own home and I had a good job,” she said.
The first time she realized something was wrong was two years into their marriage.
“One day I came home, and she was crying and when I asked her what happened she told me that he touched her breast. I called him and I went to him and I asked him, and he denied it and said they were playing ticklish and if he touched her breast he was sorry, and it was a mistake.
“For me, not having the knowledge, you know, I sat down with both of them and I spoke to them and I told him he should not be playing with her. I was naïve and I gave him the benefit of the doubt that they were playing…,” she said in an attempt to explain why she did not act immediately.
At the time she had a young baby and she believed after the conversation, “things were normal in my eyes. Only to find and to be told in 2018 that he was sexually molesting my daughter…”
It was shortly after she had buried her mother that she received a call from the Childcare and Protection Agency. Her daughter had opened up to her father’s relative revealing the abuse.
“Her father’s family contacted Childcare, the police got involved and she was out of my care for seven months.”
She saw her daughter during the months she stayed with a relative and she said she was tormented as she could not understand, “why she couldn’t tell me, because we had that relationship where we talked”.
There were times she had left the children with her husband when she had to be away for days on work assignments.
I asked her if she never suspected something was wrong especially in light of the fact that her daughter had complained earlier about the man touching her inappropriately.
“I used to be watching. In my spirit, it was like something was not right… but I didn’t know. I couldn’t put my hands on anything because you keep looking and you not seeing anything,” she answered.
He denied that he molested the child when the matter was reported.
“I couldn’t believe. I didn’t believe,” she admitted.
I asked her why she thought her daughter would lie.
“Because I was living in the house and not seeing anything and it was her father’s side that was calling me telling me these things, she never told me. And the night before there was an incident and she was upbraided for leaving lessons in the company of her male colleagues. I felt because she was upbraided that maybe she told those things to her father’s relatives to get out of the house,” she answered.
“That is how I rationalized not believing. And then her father told me he had questioned her and took her to his two sisters and then to a third sister before she revealed those things. So for me it was not a case of her going and tell them, but them questioning her and I was baffled,” she continued.
Initially the child said she was touched inappropriately but when she was examined it was revealed that she was raped, and she later revealed this to investigators and Childcare officers. The man was charged with rape and the mother said his parents asked her to drop the matter.
“He was not living with me. By then I had taken out a restraining order against him. He did not threaten me, but after I found out that he really raped my daughter I was like going crazy. I was home just crying days and nights… And even in that time before the restraining order and before he was charged he was coming to me for sex. I could not have him touching me. It crawled my skin. And this man tie a rope, as if he was hanging himself, in front of my children. He was naked, because according to him I didn’t want to give him sex, and what about his needs. One time he even strip and walk naked on the road,” she disclosed.
After he was charged he was placed on bail and even with restraining order the couple was being counselled by a church pastor. The woman said she also approached the office of the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) to have the matter against him withdrawn.
I asked her why.
“Counselling at church,” she said quietly. “The pastor did not say in plain words drop the matter, but he was like you get you daughter back and must work on the marriage,” she continued.
Her daughter was returned to her custody after she approached the High Court, and an order was made that Child Care hand over the child to her custody. This was after she reported that the man was no longer in the house.
‘Biggest mistake’
“It was a mistake. It was the biggest mistake of my life,” she said, tears flowing again.
Not only did the man return to the home, but the DPP eventually withdrew the matter on the grounds that they no longer wanted to proceed. She said her daughter expressed the wish as well to have the matter discontinued. Her daughter’s father and his relatives did not know the matter was withdrawn.
I have independently confirmed that the man was indeed charged and through the DPP’s office intervention the charge was withdrawn.
I asked her if she believed her daughter was raped.
“I knew he did it,” she answered.
So how did she take him back and sleep in the same bed with him?
“It was a struggle. It was a struggle. During that time I got baptized. I was going to church. Both of us went to the church but they did not baptize him because they said they did not believe he was converted and he was just going because of the matter…,” she answered.
“After I took him back, if he was outside watching TV, I get the bedroom door open so I could see what he was doing. I even buy a lock for the children’s room and tell them to lock it when they go inside. That is how I was. I didn’t sleep in the night because the minute he make a move I was alert,” she continued.
“I was going crazy,” she admitted.
Months later, her daughter informed a relative that the man was continuing to touch her inappropriately and had offered her money for him to rape her.
Hours later, the woman said, she told him to leave the house. He refused and it was through his parent’s intervention that he eventually left.
“After that he keep calling my phone and saying he want to come back in the house with he children. I got to a point where I said I am not going to keep your children from you, and I took them one day to see him and he said to me that he never find he self attracted to no lil girl and he don’t know why he find my daughter attractive. He said that to me…,” she said, tears flowing freely by now.
“He then asked me if I can’t send me daughter by she father so he could move on with he family. He has two girl children and at this time it scares me to even try to find out if he did anything to them… I don’t think I can deal with it. Sometimes I get a question about the youngest one because I would tell them nobody supposed to touch your vagina and she would say, ‘only daddy’ so for me it is like this man has been touching her…” she trailed off, taking some time to compose herself.
The conversation continued.
“I had to tell her not even daddy should touch her.”
She took a decision not to allow him to see the children.
She believes he orchestrated an attack on her home one night which caused her to panic and call him, as according to her she had no one else to turn for assistance, and he attempted to use that opportunity to move back into the home. At that time she was sleeping at a neighbour as she was afraid to sleep at home.
“I realize that he set up this thing to traumatize me so I could take him back and I had him arrested on [the] restraining order… I left and I have been in a shelter since because he threatened to kill me,” she said.
He is currently on bail on a charge of sexually touching of the minor; because the rape matter was withdrawn he cannot face the same charge a second time. He has since approached the court for a restraining order against her. That matter is set to go to trial.
In the meantime, they have been divorced and are in court over the division of property. According to the woman, the man goes into the house and he has destroyed her and her children’s clothes and other items.
“He doesn’t live there but he goes there and takes women… Why me and my children have to be in a shelter for eight months?” she asked rhetorically, before adding that she is afraid for her life.
Being in protective custody has been frustrating for her and the children and she longs for the day when they can once again have some semblance of normalcy.
‘I accept it’
I told her many reading her story would describe her as a terrible mother.
“I accept it. I wouldn’t say I am a terrible mother, but I accept that I have made a mistake. I would say I tried to hold my marriage and family together. I made a mistake that I live to regret right now,” she responded.
I asked her about her daughter and if she is being counselled.
“She is being counselled right now but not as much as I would want her to be counselled.
“I find that she is angry. She would lash out even with her siblings… that hurts me, but I understand where it is coming from,” she continued. Her daughter’s father’s relatives are upset with her and she said understandably they do not speak to her.
“I study her and what damage it has done to her. She is always angry, and I don’t know how it will affect her in the future,” she said of her daughter.
“Sometimes I feel like giving up. I sat at the shelter and the thoughts about drinking something and giving them something came to me and I had to communicate with persons and talk to them and they would advise and guide me,” she said, crying uncontrollably.
Looking back, she believes that his parents knew what he did, and that he likely molested family members, but they never told her.
“Please be vigilant and know who you are bringing into your children’s lives,” she advises other women. “We have to be careful who we trust and who we bring into our homes.”
Her ex-husband had appeared to be wonderful and swept her off her feet, but later morphed into a monster who is still tormenting her.
To contact the Childcare and Protection Agency, persons can call 227-0979.
