Tag Archives: child abuse

The Thing

Like a living thing it lurked in the spare room quietly clicking away to itself. No one knew about it save for the boy and he told no one. What would have been the point of telling? Had he told they would have called him mad, a strange child with a tenuous grip on reality the adults would have remarked. Sometimes even he doubted the existence of the thing. During the day the room stood silent and empty except for the presence of a chest of drawers, a single bed and a wardrobe. The homely presence of the furniture, solid and dependable reassured the boy during daylight that all was well in the house. When the sun shonne on the walls the horses imprinted on the wall paper filled the child with delight. He imagined them galloping across sunlit green fields their long mains blowing in the wind. He galloped with them wild and free, nothing could hurt him, his spirit was one with the sky and the wind.

At night the thing came. Click, click it said crouching in it’s corner coiled and ready to pounce. The thing never left it’s lair but the knowledge of the loathsome presence filled him with dread. Click, click it said waiting patiently in the dark for it’s prey.

Looking back he never could recall having entered the room. Some how or other he was there in the presence of the unspeakable clicking thing. It never spoke, perhaps it was incapable of speech, the thing merely bided it’s time and when the time was right struck like a beast launching itself upon his prey. Click, click the machine whispered to itself it’s tentacles reaching for the boy’s neck. Choking he fought with the thing. It was strong but he always managed to wriggle away somehow. Perhaps the thing wanted him to escape. Like a cat which takes pleasure in catching a mouse, releasing it and giving chase once more the thing would let him go only to wait, patiently for the next tussle.

He called it the strangling machine on account of it’s propensity to choke him. Click, click, click echoing down the years the thing reached into his nightmares, filling his brain with the terrors of the night. Click, click click … …

Paid for: My Journey into Prostitution by Rachel Moran

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I am currently reading “Paid For: My Journey Through Prostitution: One Brave Woman’s Account of the Violence that is Prostitution [Kindle Edition], by Rachel Moran (see http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00C7735X8?ie=UTF8&ref_=oce_digital). The author grew up with two mentally ill parents. Her father committed suicide when she was still a young girl. Rachel’s mother’s schizophrenia worsened following his death leading to increased pressure on Rachel and the other children of the family to grow up before their time. For example the author relates how she had to collect her younger sister from the hospital unaccompanied by her mother while still a young child.

The pressure cooker environment leads to Rachel leaving home in her early teens. She moves from hostel to hostel experiencing periods of homelessness in between. Due to hunger she turns to shop lifting but not being adept at it frequently ends up in the local police stations.

At the age of 15 Rachel’s 21-year-old boyfriend suggests that she enters prostitution. Believing that sex work will empower her Rachel agrees to this suggestion and at the age of 15 enters street prostitution.

I am under half way through the book and have therefore not formed a view as to it’s overall merits. What I can say is that Rachel Moran knows how to string a sentence together and that the reader feels compelled to agree with her assessment that given her chaotic childhood the author’s entry into prostitution was predictable (I don’t think that one can say inevitable).

I will post a full review once I have finished reading Moran’s book.

Review of Stolen Girl by Katie Taylor and Veronica Clark

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I have just finished reading Stolen Girl by Katie Taylor and Veronica Clarke, http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00AWR8RL0?ie=UTF8&ref_=oce_digital. The book relates the true story of how 13-year-old Katie Taylor is groomed by a paedophile gang and systematically raped and used as the gang’s sex toy. The book opens with Katie trick or treating with her brother Andrew and her father at the age of 10, however this innocent pastime is replaced only two years later by horrific sexual abuse.

Katie is bullied at school and has a low opinion of herself making her an easy target for the paedophile group lead by Zeb. Zeb and the other men who abuse Katie ply her with alcohol and drugs to loosen her inhibitions. They claim to love Katie but their sole aim is to sexually abuse her. The final straw comes when Zeb asks the 15-year-old Katie to become a prostitute (thus far she hasn’t received money but Katie has, as mentioned above been plied with drugs and alcohol). Katie is so shocked and frightened by the suggestion that she confides in her school’s councillor who alerts the police. Following a wait of 2 years the 18-year-old Katie sees Zeb and several other of the gang’s members sentenced to long terms of imprisonment, however she is bitter that a number of the men who abused her are found not guilty.

The book raises two sensitive issues, that of paedophilia and Asian sex gangs. While stating that the majority of Asians deplore the sexual abuse of children the authors make it clear that all of the men who abused Katie where of Asian origin. Katie’s story is horrific and is wholly credible. However we should, if that is possible put her experience into context. Most Asian men do not abuse children and (as the authors acknowledge) are horrified by paedophilia. Also it should be borne in mind that the ongoing investigations into allegations of child abuse surrounding the late Sir Jimmy Savile relate primarily if not exclusively to alegations made against white European males. The bottom line is that people of all races commit acts of paedophilia and they should be condemned irrespective of their ethnic origin. I recommend this book.

Bath Time

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They found him lying face down in his bath. Donna, the barmaid in the Grapes where the elderly man had been drinking on that fateful Saturday afternoon,informed WPC Margaret Thomas that, to the best of her recollection he had consumed at least 10 pints of lager. The post mortem revealed a blood alcohol level consistent with Donna’s testimony and there being no suspicious circumstances surrounding the incident a verdict of accidental death was returned. As his friends remarked

“Poor Stan must have banged his head on the bath, lost consciousness and drowned”.

—

George hated the bathroom. Nothing unusual about that one might say and, indeed as a small boy he shared with his friends a detestation of cleanliness. Playing football, getting caked in mud was all tremendous fun but washing constituted barbarism perpetrated on children by unsmiling adults. In the case of his friends bath time meant gentle cajoling to enter the water. If they refused to wash then their parents driven to distraction might, to howls of protest take hold of the recalcitrant child and soap him from head to toe with imperial leather. Years later George’s friends smiled as they recalled bath time, not so George.

Have you ever felt the cold enamel of a basin as it touches your face? Yes very possibly you have my dear readers. Let me rephrase the question, have you ever felt strong hands holding your head under water? Have you felt the panic rising in you, the terrible unspeakable fear that you would drown? Have you wondered why man does evil unto man? I hope that the answer is no. Little George could unfortunately answer yes to all these questions. He lived in terror of the man. Outwardly charming, the life and soul of the party. He was such a charmer was Stan, no one would have dreamed that he was abusing his step son. Oh reader is that really the case? Shouldn’t someone have seen the terror in George’s eyes when Stan was in the room? Some no doubt remarked on the fact that when Stan was absent how George seemed happy and relaxed. Had someone acted then would Stan’s fate have been averted? Would he have died peacefully in his bed rather than struggling for breath as his lungs filled with water? Perhaps we should ask George but he, like Mccavity wasn’t there, or was he?

Every man has his price

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According to Marxists prostitution is merely one manifestation of the middle class family (Engels held that marriage often degenerates into prostitution) see, for example an article in Slate Magazine, “Socialist Hoares: What Did Karl Marx Think of Prostitution?” (http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/explainer/2011/11/socialist_whores_what_did_karl_marx_think_of_prostitution_.html). I am no Marxist. I am however interested as a writer to explore why certain people (primarily women but men also) take a conscious decision to sell their bodies in return for financial security. In my story Rent (http://newauthoronline.com/2013/03/15/rent/) for example, Leah a girl from a tough council estate in East London’s Tower Hamlets becomes the girlfriend of Ian, a wealthy stockbroker as a means of escaping her grim existence. Leah makes the calculation that sleeping with Ian is a price worth paying to escape from a world in which drug addicts inject themselves on the stairs and the lifts stink of urine. However Leah’s fine clothes and expensive jewellery come at a high price – she sells her soul. Leah doesn’t love Ian (his contemptuous treatment of a young waitress in an expensive restaurant revolts her). She is, however unwilling to break away from the luxurious existence which Ian’s wealth allows her to enjoy.

Again, in my story Damned (http://newauthoronline.com/2013/03/10/damned/) a young Thai girl, Nan determines to seduce her western employer in order to benefit financially when he dies. As a girl of 14 Nan knows that by encouraging John to sleep with her that he is breaking the law and, as such Nan has the power to blackmail him by threatening to inform the authorities if he doesn’t agree to leave her financially secure on his death. Nan has experienced hardship (prior to meeting John she sold food on the streets of Bangkok) and in order to better her condition she calculates that having intercourse with John is a price worth paying.

There are obvious differences in the two stories. Leah lives in the UK where despite her life being grim the welfare state will prevent her from starving (her life in the tower block is horrible but she won’t die). In contrast there is no welfare safety net in Thailand and Nan must work or die. So is Leah more “culpable” than Nan when she determines to provide sex in return for economic security? On one level this is true. Nan is a child who, arguably does not possess the capacity to make an informed choice about selling her body. As an adult John could have resisted her advances however, being weak willed he fails to do so. In contrast Leah is an adult who possesses the intellectual capacity to make informed decisions regarding her own body. One may argue that economic circumstances push Leah into the arms of Ian, however many other people in the same situation as Leah do not opt to sell their bodies by becoming the mistresses of rich men so, ultimately Leah does make a conscious choice. Whether her decision is right or wrong is a matter for my readers to determine. For my own part I am wary of passing moral judgements on others. We are all fallible human beings. Life is rarely black and white, it tends rather to be made up of shades of grey.