Close to home: four women relate how they were sexually molested as children

Resentment, an inability to trust, emotional trauma and depression are some of the psychological scars carried by children who suffered sexual molestation at the hands of family members.

Incest remains one of the most under-reported and least discussed crimes in our nation. Associated with strong taboos not just in the local community but in the international one as well, incest often remains concealed by the victim because of guilt, shame, fear, social and familial pressure, and coercion by the abuser.

Help and Shelter Crisis Service Centre (HSCSC) has reported that more and more persons are coming forward to report incest cases and have attributed this to its public education campaign.

For this year, the organization has received two reports of children under the age of six years old being raped. In the six to eight-year-old age range, HSCSC has seen three cases, in addition to five children aged between nine and 11.

The majority of cases, 22 for the year, were accounted for by children aged 12 to 14. HSCSC is also currently providing counselling and other assistance to 11 other rape sufferers, four of whom are between the ages of 15 and 17; two in the 18 to 20 age range; four between the ages of 21 and 30; and one in the 30 to 31 age range.

Research has determined that many other cases go unreported either to the police or to Help and Shelter. A consultation paper drafted by the Ministry of Human Services and Social Security as part of its ‘Stamp it out’ campaign states that prosecutors and health care workers have reported increasing levels of violence against young children in Guyana. It acknowledges that in most cases the offender is known to the child.

In a section headed ‘Did you know?’ the paper said that a 2005 study found that only obout one per cent of the rapes reported to the police resulted in a conviction. It revealed too that a study done this year found that 92% of victims of sexual violence were female and 60% of these were 16 years old and younger.

In three out of every four cases, the accused was known to the victim and more than two-thirds of sexual offences took place in the home of the victim or the accused, the document, which was produced as part of the ministry’s efforts to strengthen protection against sexual violence and reforming the law on sexual offences, reported.

From 2000 to 2004, the study said, of the 647 rape cases reported to the police, 341 of the offenders had been charged and 20 had been tried in the high court, but only nine convictions had been secured.

While the ministry was directing its efforts to instituting tougher legislation to deal with those who commited these offences, victims who had already suffered remained scarred by the abuse.

‘Stolen innocence’

“Stolen innocence,” is how Bridget (not her real name) described the pain and agony she still felt following years of sexual abuse which started at the tender age of five.

“I just wanted to play with my friends outside and wanted to do what any five-year-old girl would do, but daddy said, ‘No stay with me in the bed