She would not say why and preferred to bend her head shyly when pressed, but at the tender age of 14, for some reason, Jane (not her real name), decided to leave her parents’ home and start a common-law relationship with a man.
The fact that her father told her “you can’t come back on a ship when you jump off” might shed some light into the child’s home environment. But it becomes chilling when just a few months later, pregnant and battered by her then 19-year-old partner, she turned to her mother who instead of reporting the assault, encouraged her to return to the man.
“I don’t know why she do it. Must be because I been pregnant already, but I know if I go back more
