Dear Editor,
Incest has been the best-kept secret in many families, neighborhoods, and islands for decades. It would be a cardinal sin if anyone would open the conversation in specific families still supporting it today. The church cannot pretend to be innocent. On certain family islands, Incest happened through generations. On a few islands, it is the norm.
I will share a confession but call the victim, Jane, for protection. She recounts how her father patted her and gave her gifts when she was ten. She was afraid to say anything because she knew she would be untrustworthy, unbelievable, or blamed for being too womanish.
This horrendous act happened almost every day when her father came home. Her mother must have known but did nothing to stop it. She said: “My mother never worked, so she relied heavily on my father’s earnings.”
One day when I got home from school, I met my little sister crying, and I asked her what had happened, but she was terrified not to divulge. The next day, when I came home, she was sad again, so I pressed her until she broke that her dad fingered her, and she believed that the mother knew because she said nothing while we were in the room.
So Jane confided in an older neighbor who confronted the mother. The mother was annoyed that the neighbor was interfering in her family affairs.
It wasn’t until the sister finally admitted that the father had penetrated the daughter the neighbor contacted the pastor, who threatened to intervene. The neighbor feared it would hurt the relationship with Jane’s mother when she found out the neighbor told the pastor.
But the pastor told the father, who was livid that the daughter exposed him. The mother finally broke down and admitted that she knew but was afraid to lose the financial support.
When the daughter started vomiting and being sick, the neighbor, who had lost the mother’s confidence, took the girl to the doctor, and they discovered that she was six weeks pregnant.
The mother finally confessed that she condoned her husband having sex with all of her daughters and that he said that his father did it to his daughters and that more in the family was guilty.
Female members of the family know Incest exists but choose to remain quiet. In many cases, people in the neighborhood know but are afraid to get involved. They stop being their brothers and sisters’ keepers.
The law must do everything to protect our precious children from sexual predators by locking up the rapist and the co-conspirators (mother) in prison, which I hope is forever, plus a day.
The onus is on the government to smoke out the habitual perpetrators and rescue them from their sick and demented minds. There can be no explanation or justification for such a vile and hideous act.
There can be no forgiveness for destroying the children psychologically, mentally, physically, emotionally, and otherwise.
We must move diligently to cause victims to come forward. Fortunately, there is in the making a unit in The Royal Bahamas Police Force that has collaborated with Social Services, Crisis Centre, and other organizations that will give teeth to prosecuting monsters who have been using all kinds of psychological methods to prey on the innocent and vulnerable.
There can be no explanation or justification for doing this or condoning it. The system must give maximum sentences to all perpetrators, and I wish the sentence were life in prison or death by any means necessary.
The church insults injury by discouraging families from reporting these serious acts under the disguise of saving the families. What an oxymoron!
These are some explicit blatant hypocrisy practiced in the Bahamas. These same men who have slaughtered their children’s spirits, forcing them to start their lives in a dungeon, are some of the people who are quick to judge and condemn others who have done far less.
Men slam dominos and drink in a familiar company while bragging about the practice passed down through generations.
It is time for us who love this country and its people to expose everyone who has been given shelter because of who the perpetrators are. All in the village is guilty of not saving the unsuspecting innocent, and naive infants from the clutches of demons.
Save the Children.
Written by: Ivoine W. Ingraham JP
