SANDRA*  had never felt comfortable in her stepfather’s presence, not even when she was four-years-old when her mother, Norma, first  brought him home and he had pinched her bottom hard enough to make her cry when her mother had gone to the shop to buy bread and eggs. For over three years she lived in cringing fear, hiding in her room, or staying at neighbour Sattie* next door for as long as her mother would let her, because the abuse continued and became even more invasive.
When she was younger he threatened her with the police, who would lock her up for being a bad girl if she talked. When she grew older, the threats became worse, to the extent where she feared for her mother’s life.
She distinctly remembers being forced to perform oral sex on him one day after her seventh birthday, because she was treated to an ice-cream cone for her birthday and the next day, as soon as her mother left the house for her job as cook in a restaurant, he told her she had to ‘lick his ice cream like she did the cone’.
She also remembered throwing up after the ordeal and being unable to eat for days afterward because of scorn and pain in her throat.
It was not long after he committed the most invasive act of all, after tying her hands and feet to the bedposts and gagging her with a rag. She said that what she remembered as being worse, much more than the pain, was being unable to scream as her tears poured like a rivulet down her face.
For years she suffered rape and sodomy. She eventually gave up on her life and stoically endured. Her grades got so bad that she dropped out of school altogether. Her mother never checked what was wrong with her, and never cared that her daughter’s education was curtailed, because Sandra had taken over all the household responsibilities.
By that time her mother and stepfather had had another daughter together.
Except for Neighbour Sattie, Sandra had never had a friend that she could remember, because she was terrified that friends could discover her secret.  Neighbour Sattie gave her the only love that she had ever known in her life.
When Sandra was eleven her stepfather began bringing his friends home. He started selling her favours to them.  As usual, she endured.
It was Neighbour Sattie who first noticed the steady stream of men visiting the home and became suspicious.  She began questioning Sandra, who broke down in tears each time but was so conditioned to fear and her fearful existence, having known nothing else since she was a child, that she remained silent.
Because of her not going to school, Neighbour Sattie had been teaching her. One day, when she did not turn up, Neighbour Sattie went over to see if she was ill.  She pushed open the door and walked straight into a scene of horror. The bed in the two-room shack, with Sandra’s tiny closet where she slept being one of the rooms, had to be located in the dual-purpose sitting room and was visible from the door that had no lock and could only be locked from outside with a padlock.
Sandra was tied spread-eagled to the bed, tears running down her face.
One man was raping her while two others waited their turn while drinking beers with her stepfather.  The backs of all the men were turned to Sattie so, unobserved, she quietly rushed to the police station.
To her dismay the ranks laughed at her and refused to accompany her, instead making lewd comments about Sandra not reporting it because she was enjoying the experience.
Either she had been observed or the men had finished and departed because when she returned only Sandra and her stepfather were at their home.  She said nothing but when Sandra’s mother, Norma, returned that evening she called her over and told her what she had seen.
To her consternation and dismay, the woman abused her soundly then went home and thrashed the screaming Sandra to within an inch of her life, until she escaped and ran next door, where Sattie locked the door after she had ran inside, leaving an abusive Norma outside, ranting and raving in a tirade of expletives.
The next day, after Norma had left for work, Sattie took Sandra to the hospital to treat a large cut on her forehead and a broken left arm. It was then that the situation unravelled.  The doctor made a report and the police were forced to act.
However, again Sandra was terrified to speak and the police could lay no charges, despite Sattie insisting that she was an eye-witness to the atrocities.
When Norma returned, she was livid that the police had been called into “me bizness”, and threw Sandra out for “shaming de fam’ly”.
Of course Sattie took her in and the two lonely souls became each other’s family.  Sandra was sent back to school, Sattie’s lessons having helped her keep up her schoolwork.
Sandra is now 29 years old, a registered midwife in England. She has no idea where her biological mother is because, in her estimation, the only mother she has is her ‘mammy Sattie”.
They were holidaying in Guyana, because Sattie was feeling homesick.
Sandra is not married. She has never had a relationship with a man.  For her fulfillment comes from the gratitude she sees reflected in the eyes of her patients and the many babies she has helped to bring into the world; and love comes from the loving heart of her ‘Mammy Sattie’.
A  husband?  She cannot relate to males in that way; and she is too ashamed of her past.
But she insists that she is content and happy, because she is aware of the statistics and knows that her restored life is only by God’s grace and the love and courage of a neighbour, who did not turn a blind eye but reached out a hand and a loving heart and was in turn rewarded with a daughter.
(*names have been changed to protect  the  identities of the individuals referred to in this true story)