Anne-Maria says ‘My innocence was taken … I told myself I would be a better person than these people’
All names and identifying details have been changed.
Participants have given us permission to share their experiences.
Anne-Maria grew up in the West Indies. One Christmas, when she was about five years old, she went overseas with her family to visit her father.
She describes him as ‘a tall, handsome, upstanding wealthy man’. She remembers he called her his ‘princess’ and that she was proud to be his daughter.
One day, thinking they were going to play a game, she jumped into bed and he touched her. He covered her mouth and she describes feeling ‘this terrible force’.
Her grandmother and stepmother were sitting outside, but she says she could not tell them what happened – she had no words. She says ‘I had no one to protect me’.
Her father abused her on many other occasions when she was overseas and when he visited the West Indies. The abuse continued until she was about 12 or 13 years old. She remembers one day when she was about nine, and her stepmother returned early from the market to find her father abusing her, but did nothing.
At one stage, while she was staying in another area of the island, a friend of her father took Anne-Maria to his house. She was there for several days. Whenever his wife went to market, her father’s friend abused her. He told Anne-Maria that if she told her grandmother what he had done, her grandmother would die.
She says that her grandmother suggested she go and stay with an aunt, to get away from her father, but wherever she went he always found her. At the aunt’s house there were several nieces staying and her father sexually abused them too. Anne-Maria is sure her aunt knew, but says she did nothing.
By the time Anne-Maria was 12 years old, she says she was bigger and ‘getting mouthy’. She was determined her father was not going to rape her any more and she ran away. Her father went to a policewoman who told Anne-Maria if she didn't behave herself and go with her father, she would be sent to prison.
When Anne-Maria was about 15 years old, a woman turned up, saying she was her birth mother. She told Anne-Maria that she had been 13 years old when she gave birth to her. She took Anne-Maria to her house but Ann-Maria says she wanted a ‘Cinderella’ and beat her if she didn’t do what she was told.
The abuse she suffered affected Anne-Maria in many ways. She describes how she wanted to have a child to prove to herself that she was ‘capable of love’. She had two unsuccessful pregnancies and her doctor told her to give up. She says she felt she had nothing else to live for but she did eventually give birth to a son and a daughter. She had internal injuries due to being sexually abused from a young age and later had to have a hysterectomy.
Her mother came to see her as an adult and Anne-Maria wanted to see if they could have a relationship, but it proved impossible.
She told her mother about the abuse by her father but her mother didn’t believe her. Anne-Maria called him and got him to speak to her mother, but he said Anne-Maria was lying.
Anne-Maria feels strongly that children should have someone to turn to, to listen to them in confidence and support them – possibly someone who has had a similar experience. She says ’I don't feel that I have had anyone to talk to.’