Rape is among the most horrific of crimes, not only because it sears the victim and often leaves her - technically, it can only be her in Jamaica's jurisprudence - scarred and scared, but its effects tend to be so lasting that it influences every moment of her life. If she ever loves again. The gentle brush of intimacy that harks back to the crawly trespass of that creep. Every time she walks up to open her grille at night. How late she stays out partying. If she parties at all. How she shapes her daughter's views on men.
We often try to paper over the cracks and encourage raped girls and women to get over their pain, to be overcomers and not be shackled by history's clutches. It's so easy to spit out a laundry list of self-help mantras, but it wasn't your neck…show more content… The nature of rape and the shame and pain that follow are key factors behind the under-reporting of the crime. And society's reflex to blame women for the violation of their person - "She dresses like a slut"; "It was bound to happen one day"; "What did she expect?"; "Like mother, like daughter"; - must be rebuffed and confronted for the patriarchal aloofness that it is.
The Tambourine Army will not be ultimately successful if it fights only from the outside. It needs to get on the inside by lobbying churches, schools and other institutions in which girls - and boys - fall under the care of authority figures to establish strict policies on adult-child interaction. Many churches have no policy proscribing girls seeking counselling by a pastor at his home? Or doing so at the church office without a senior female sitting in on the session?
Staging workshops in schools or, specifically, with school clubbites are effective mechanism for getting the message out in safeguarding girls from rape or encouraging victims to go to the police and bringing attackers to