Carisa Lee

On Pinky’s (not her re­al name) first day at St Jude’s Home for Girls’ in Bel­mont, a ma­tron, ac­cord­ing to her, en­cour­aged oth­er girls to phys­i­cal­ly at­tack her.

“She was like so and so, deal with she for me they and so and so did get up,” Pinky said yes­ter­day, as she re­count­ed her stay at one of the homes cur­rent­ly in the news fol­low­ing the re­lease of the Ju­dith Jones Task Force’s re­port in­to the op­er­a­tions of chil­dren’s homes and care cen­tres across the coun­try.

The 307-page Ju­dith Jones Task Force re­port high­light­ed cas­es of phys­i­cal and sex­u­al abuse, gang rape and even pros­ti­tu­tion at in­sti­tu­tions.

Pinky claimed she en­dured se­vere phys­i­cal abuse or­ches­trat­ed by the ma­tron and those un­der her (ma­tron) dur­ing her stay in the sys­tem.

At just 13-years-old in a for­eign en­vi­ron­ment, Pinky said she had to make a de­ci­sion on whether to fight back or walk away. She chose the lat­ter.

“So and so was her pet, so and so was her pup­pet, so and so was who she used to check oth­er girls and put the new girls in place so that the new girls know what the or­der was,” she ex­plained.

It’s why the for­mer res­i­dent be­lieves some of the em­ploy­ees, while qual­i­fied, should not be al­lowed to work with chil­dren, es­pe­cial­ly trau­ma­tised ones.

Pinky ad­mit­ted that she was re­bel­lious in her teenage years but said her ac­tions were just re­ac­tions to what she had to deal with.

“I think they thought (her par­ents) the best method of cor­rec­tion was prayer and licks, spare the rod and spoil the child,” she said.

She said she was bul­lied in school be­cause of the colour of her skin, tex­ture of her hair and her fa­cial fea­tures. But no one, not her par­ents or even the pro­fes­sion­als at the homes, took the time to learn and help her with that.

“You could nev­er be qual­i­fied to deal with chil­dren and us­ing chil­dren to beat up oth­er chil­dren; you get qual­i­fied in hell,” she said

Pinky spent ap­prox­i­mate­ly three months at St Jude’s be­fore be­ing ad­mit­ted to St Ann’s Hos­pi­tal and then the Ju­ve­nile Sec­tion of the Women’s Prison.

But while at the home, she not on­ly ex­pe­ri­enced abuse but wit­nessed it hap­pen to oth­er res­i­dents as well.

“They used to keep a Down Syn­drome young la­dy locked in the stairs…it was like a prison, that’s not how you treat spe­cial needs kids,” she said.

She said while there she was not able to go to school, go out­side or use any of the elec­tron­ic de­vices. Ac­cord­ing to Pinky, there were times when peo­ple brought items for her but she nev­er re­ceived them.

“I would have heard things like girls’ heads get­ting shaven off, girls get­ting put in a dark room, like a jail cell,” she said.

The now 20-some­thing-year-old said the ma­trons wrote in­ac­cu­rate re­ports for the mag­is­trates about some girls in­volved in the fights, even stat­ing that they were men­tal­ly ill. She said as a re­sult of this, some of the res­i­dents would be sent to the St Ann’s Hos­pi­tal and giv­en med­ica­tion with­out a ques­tion.

“It’s un­fair to me and to oth­er girls for their sto­ry not to be heard, every­body just putting their own twist to what you go­ing through and just have you this way, St Ann’s one day, St Jude’s the next, St Do­minic’s the next, women’s prison the next, just be­cause of what some­one with pow­er and au­thor­i­ty writes,” she ex­plained, as she re­vealed her rea­son for com­ing out with her sto­ry.

While at St Ann’s, her par­ents did not give per­mis­sion to the au­thor­i­ties there for her to get med­icat­ed but she said the med­i­cine ad­min­is­tered to some of her friends af­fect­ed them.

Not­ing one of her friend’s ex­pe­ri­ences af­ter be­ing med­icat­ed, Pinky said, “She slow, the med­ica­tion had her slow.”

Amidst her strug­gles, Pinky was able to pass her CSEC sub­jects, at­tend uni­ver­si­ty and grad­u­ate with a de­gree in Psy­chol­o­gy.

She said she chose that field to be­come the help for peo­ple cur­rent­ly in the sys­tem, a lux­u­ry she did not have.

“Every­body al­ways like to talk about the girl who run­ning away, she bad and they should lock she up and put she in St Jude’s but they doesn’t re­al­ly un­der­stand why she be­hav­ing so, no­body born bad,” she said.

Pinky now dreams of be­com­ing a youth de­vel­op­ment prac­ti­tion­er so that she can help oth­er young girls un­der­stand and over­come their trau­ma.

She is cur­rent­ly look­ing for a job in that field and has ap­plied to the On-The-Job Train­ing Pro­gramme, Na­tion­al Em­ploy­ment Ser­vice and even the Gen­der and Child Af­fairs Min­istry.

She said she be­lieves chil­dren’s homes are need­ed across the coun­try but the cur­rent ones need re­struc­tur­ing if help­ing chil­dren is the goal.

“I feel like I re­late with them the most for sure,” she said.

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