Recently I was speaking to a friend who had gone through a humiliating experience and I have her permission to share it with you.

Georgia had apparently accompanied her male companion to the doctor, after which they stopped off at the pharmacy to have the prescription filled. She was the one who got out of the car to go to the pharmacy, while her companion waited in the car across the street. On filling the prescription and was heading back to the car, her companion seeing that she was ready, drove off to turn the car at an intersection about 40 feet down the road to return to pick her up. The process of his turning the car was a little delayed, as there was also another car waiting before him to do the same and they were both held up by the sudden increase of traffic flow.

While Georgia watched the car and waited for her companion’s return, she spotted an elderly man heading towards her whom she recognized as one of her father’s friends. As he got abreast to her, they acknowledged each other and exchanged hellos. She proceeded to ask if everything was ok, to which his answer was “No”. At this response and out of concern, she asked “What is wrong now?”

The man then took a step a bit closer to her as if to whisper his predicament, then said “Mi want a little tun tun.” For those of us who are Jamaicans the word “Tun Tun” is familiar to us. It is a patois dialect which means a woman’s private area. To hear the word of that magnitude coming from her father’s friend she was suddenly taken aback and felt her blood running cold.

In her moment of horror, the only words that came to her mouth were “Not from me!! You couldn’t be asking that from me!!.” At the end of her exclamation to the bastard, the car had returned, so she just opened the car and went in, leaving the man standing there.

When she got into the car, her male companion was speaking on his mobile but as he hung up, he asked “Who was that?” Georgia reluctantly replied that he was her father’s friend. He proceeded to ask her what is it he wanted, to which she embarrassingly related the conversation. Well needless to say and rightly so, he was mad. But in his anger he hit out at the wrong person. He ranted at Georgia, telling her that obviously the man did not respect her, that was why he came up to her asking this question and he went on to ask her if those were the kinds of friends her father kept.

Being embarrassed from the incident and now being ranted at as if she had done something wrong, Georgia sat quietly in the car until they went home, she went to a quite place to collect her thoughts.

I relate this story as my way of trying to bring to light the sexually abuse that many children go through in their lives by the hand of close friends of their parents. Many times when these incidents happen, it is not necessarily on the roads where there are persons to call out to but at the homes, when these children are left with these “wolfs in sheep’s clothing” friends who take advantage of them.

It also brings to light the fact that these very children, who are abused by their parents’ friend, do not come forward and tell of the abuse because of the reaction that they fear they will get. That of being the reason for the abuse to have taken place in the first place.

I use the word children but in Georgia’s case she is an adult, this did not exempt her from the abuse of a sexual predator, one who has been her father’s friend for years but had only just made sexual advances to her.

With this man being her father’s friend, does it actually mean that her father is to be blamed for the man he called his friend? It is my opinion that no parent will stand by to allow their offspring child or adult to be abused by their friend. It is with that in mind that I ask “How many sleeping dogs are you harbouring in your back yard and what will it take to wake them?