A Mother’s Betraya
By: Pamela Joy Smith
The mother worked every day and attended school at night in an attempt
to seek a better life for herself. She entrusted the care of her eight year old daughter and her
six year old daughter to her boyfriend.
Her daughters repeatedly told their mother that her boyfriend was doing
nasty things to their private parts while the mother was attending school. Their mother refused to believe them.
However, on the next doctor’s visit, the doctor advised the mother that
both girls had gonorrhea, a sexually transmitted disease. He explained that the infection could
be spread by contact with the mouth, vagina, penis, or anus of another person
who has the disease. Even though
this mother knew her own boyfriend was being treated for this sexually
transmitted disease, she refused to believe that he had raped her own daughters
and infected them with this disease.
The Child Protection Team was notified
and the Court determined that since the mother was not protecting the children
against the sexual abuse, the children were placed in the custody of a loving
grandmother. Pending the trial of
the boyfriend, I contacted the grandmother and arranged to visit the children
in her home as she had no transportation.
I met the two young children who melted my heart. They were well-mannered, polite and
sweet. It was evident that they
were thriving with the love from their grandmother. They were straight forward
in telling me the repeated times that they had been raped.
At trial, both girls had to testify as to what the defendant had done to
them. Then came the ultimate, the
defendant’s star witness was the girls’ mother. She testified that her daughters had never liked her
boyfriend and that she was adamant that they would say anything to try to
convince her to leave him. I remember
asking her how could she explain the Doctor’s opinion that both girls had
suffered from being raped as evidenced by his medical examination. The mother calmly answered that her
daughters were sexually curious and that she had observed them on several
occasions trying to insert various objects including sticks into their private
parts.
Justice was reached when the jury
believed the two young girls and found the defendant guilty. Defendant was
sentenced to life with a minimum mandatory sentence of twenty five years in
prison. I remember calling the
grandmother after I had returned to my office. The grandmother thanked me repeatedly and her two
granddaughters got on the phone and thanked me for helping them. The
grandmother then told me that shortly after the verdict and before my call,
that her daughter had driven recklessly onto her yard screaming at the girls, “I
hope you are satisfied.”
Wasn’t it
enough that these young girls had been raped repeatedly, that they had to be
treated for a sexually transmitted disease, that they had to testify in front
of a courtroom of strangers in front of their abuser and finally have their own
mother betray them?
Although this is one case solved, there are so many children in our
society who suffer daily at the hands of their abusers. Please join us at Whatafan.com and
together, let us make a difference in a child’s life. To quote from an unknown
author “ that to the world you may be one person but to that one person you may
be the world.” If you know of a child who has confided in you about the abuse
from which they suffer, become their world and help stop the abuse by picking
up the phone and notifying the authorities.
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