Father searched my private parts

Dear Pastor,

I will be 18 years old very soon. I am living with my stepmother and my father. My mother is in rural Jamaica, and she was not treating me well, so when I was 15, I asked my father if I can come and live with him and his girlfriend.

My father was very busy driving a taxi for a man. I got involved with a man who used to come to the house to see my stepmother. He told me that if I have sex with him, he would give me anything I wanted. He, however, insisted that I keep it a secret.

I had an old cellphone. He told me he could give me a new one. I told my stepmother that this man promised me a phone. She told me I should not take it. She asked the man why he wanted to give me a phone, and he said that he offered because he saw me using an old one. I took the phone from the man. Whenever I left for school, I removed the SIM card from my old phone and put in the new phone. However, I changed the SIM card when I got home.

One day I was in my room and I had forgotten to change the SIM card and to put it in my old phone. My stepmother heard the phone ringing and she came into the room and saw me on the phone, and heard the man's voice. She did not say anything to me, but late into the night when my father came home, she told him. Both of them came into the room and my father asked me about the man and the phone.

My stepmother told my father that she believed I was having sex with the man and I told them no, that was not happening. However, I was lying because I had sex with the man twice.

My father said he can find out and my father did something to me that I never thought he would do. He told my stepmother to hold my hands and then he said I should spread my legs. I refused, but he told me that if I didn't comply, I would have to come out of his house. So I opened my legs and my father inserted two of his fingers into my vagina. He then he said that I am a big woman and and he asked me again whether I had sex with this man. I told him and my stepmother the truth.

My father took the phone and used a hammer and smashed it to pieces. He then asked me when and where I had sex with this man, and I told him. He told me he was going to send me back to rural Jamaica, but his girlfriend, who became my stepmother, begged him to allow me to stay.

I wrote my father a letter begging him for forgiveness. He told me I disappointed him. This man, who was a friend of the family, doesn't come here any more. My aunt sent me a new phone. She lives in Miami.

I did not tell anybody what my father and stepmother did to me. I cannot forgive my father for inserting his fingers into my vagina. He is not a doctor. I asked my stepmother why she agreed for him to do so and she said I am a little girl and I shouldn't be having sex. She said she was 21 when she started to have sex.

I am going back to school and my father is watching me much more than before. I have to call him whenever I am leaving school and he tries to pick me up. Sometimes I have to wait over an hour for him to come for me.

Although I promise him that I would behave myself, he said he does not want anything to happen to me, and he cannot afford for me to get pregnant.

He has two other children, they are boys. I love them. Sometimes they come to the house and spend some time. When I become 18, I do not want to stay here. Can you give me some advice? Please tell me what to do.

R.

Dear R.,

What your father and his girlfriend did is despicable. His girlfriend should not have encouraged him to insert his fingers in your vagina. You were at their mercy. You will never forget what they did to you. They humiliated you. Perhaps this woman felt that they were teaching you a lesson so that you would not continue to have sex with this man, or for any man at all until you have become an adult.

I am not here saying that this man should have had sex with you. On the other hand, he did not rape you. I am sorry that you took the phone from him.

I am going to beg you not to leave your father's house and to go anywhere else to live because even if you were to get a job, you would find that it would be difficult for you to cope on your own.

I don't know which school you are attending, but you need to get yourself a profession or work on a skill so that you will be able to support yourself. Pursue an area that you really like and work hard at it.

As I read your letter, I said to myself, you should discuss your future with your father.

Now take good care of yourself. I believe your father means well, but he doesn't understand that he was wrong to violate you. But continue to respect him and make sure you do not do anything that would cause him to ask you to leave his house.

Pastor