Mentally challenged teenager a constant victim of gang rape

Apr 22, 2012 News

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Pull Quote: “At first I did not want to do what they tell me fuh do, but dey start fuh beat me; was eight of dem. One was taking money from the rest, like he sellin me to dem.”
By Dale Andrews

At 17 years old when most girls may be thinking about their first boyfriend, Sonia (not her real name) has already endured several gang rapes that would make one’s skin crawl.
You see, Sonia is mentally challenged, and she is vulnerable to advantage takers who in some cases use her as a sex tool to satisfy their fiendish needs as well as fill their pockets.
The situation has reached frightening proportions and has forced her mother to speak out, since according to her, in this day and age, with sexually transmitted diseases permeating the society, her daughter’s life is at risk.
The teenager recently sat down with me in the presence of her mother and detailed some harrowing tales of sexual and physical abuse at the hands of total strangers.
One look at her and you would not be able to tell that her life has been a living hell, but after a few minutes of conversation with Sonia you will definitely conclude that all is not right with her mentally.
Sonia lives on the East Coast of Demerara with her mother and an older sister.
Her early childhood was a challenge for her single-parent mother, who willingly took some of the blame for the plight that Sonia finds herself in today.
The mother informed that in the early stages of her pregnancy with Sonia, she had tried an abortion which failed miserably.
Eventually Sonia was born but could not walk for the first five years of her life.
“We eventually get her to walk at about five years old, but she was damaged upstairs (brain),” the mother told me.
Nevertheless, Sonia, a slow learner, went to school like any other normal child with little signs of the mentally deficiency that was later identified.
She attended the St. Barnabas Special School and began to physically develop like any other teenager.
But it was during this time that signs of her mental state began to show.
It was explained that she would be sent to the shop for one item but would return with something totally different.
“You would send her for ice and she would come back with tennis roll,” her mother said.
Eventually, Sonia began getting away from home and would wander around in the city, sometimes with friends who did not have her interest at heart.
It was on these many forays into the unknown that Sonia began experiencing the abuse that has now come to be a part of her daily life.
It got worse as persons who know Sonia would even go to her home when she is left alone and lure her away.
Sonia described instances where she would be wandering by the Stabroek Market and would be approached by mostly males who enticed her with something to eat and take her to destinations as far away as Timehri where they would have their “fun with her”.
“Sometimes we don’t find her back for months. Last year November she left and we never get her back till in January this year,” the distraught mother informed this newspaper.
Even as recent as the day before Good Friday last, Sonia was lured all the way up the East Bank of Demerara by a man she knows as ‘Quincy’ and sexually abused.
Sonia has been a victim of gang rape in places such as Agricola, Plaisance and Albouystown.
She recalled one such experience.
A few months ago one of her female friends encouraged her to go to a house in Albouystown where she was left with a group of boys.
“She tell dem fuh keep me and she run away.” What followed next was a horrifying experience.
The boys demanded oral sex from her.
“At first I did not want to do what they tell me fuh do, but dey start fuh beat me; was eight ah dem. One was taking money from the rest, like he sellin me to dem,” Sonia recalled.
According to her, it was a man who claimed to be a policeman who rescued her.
“A policeman come and tell dem, ‘loose dis f…ing girl before I shoot up dis place’. Is so dem loose me,” the mentally challenged girl said.
Sometimes during our conversation she would wander off and it was easy to see why she was vulnerable since she repeatedly complained of being hungry.
Even her mother lamented the advantage taken on her too whenever she has to seek help to maintain her child.
Sonia went on to tell of her Agricola ordeal, describing how a boy had snatched her from a house she was staying at and took her to another building where she was again sexually abused in the vilest manner.
On another occasion Sonia was lured by a woman who had found her wandering, to a Brazilian nightspot, where she was turned into a hooker for the night.
She spent that night with a Brazilian man who she said gave her $10,000 for her ‘services’.
When asked why she never screamed or try to get away during the ordeals, Sonia said that at first she resisted but “that is when I does get blows, so I stop fighting back.”
She said that sometimes her abusers would claim to be policemen, threatening to lock her up if she ever discloses what they had done to her.
“I frighten lock-up. I get lock-up couple times when they pick me up of de road but me mother does come and collect me,” she explained.
Sonia’s situation is so troubling that her mother, too, had a despairing attitude when asked why she does not report these incidents to the authorities.
“I shame to go to the authorities. Is not something healthy for a mother to do,” the mother said.
She is aware that her daughter’s physical appearance would attract the opposite sex, but is worried by another inexplicable act of unkindness.
“Anybody who don’t know her and show an interest in her would usually be turned off by the neighbours who spread all kinds of rumours,” she stated.
An official of the Child Protection Agency of the Ministry of Human Services and Social Security, when told of the case, expressed disgust that a society can allow something like this to go on for so long.
“She is an imbecilic female and while the family has to take some responsibility, we now need a community response to child protection. There should be outrage from society whenever these things are brought to light,” the official told this newspaper.
She strongly believes that if the perpetrators can be identified they should face prosecution. The Sexual Offences Act provides for this,” the Child Protection Agency official said.
Thankfully despite all of her experiences, Sonia has never been impregnated or contracted any disease.

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