The Child Bride

by Cathy Glass

  I soothed her hand reassuringly. I could see why Zeena might think this – that Hasan’s rape had set in motion a chain of events – but clearly he wasn’t the only one to blame. Her father, her uncle and the other men who’d abused her were all to blame, and possibly her mother too. How could she be so blind as not to suspect what was going on?

  ‘You are a child, Zeena,’ Tara said. ‘And a victim. You needed help and support, not blaming. There is no way that Hasan’s attack can be used by your father to justify his abuse. It was never your fault. I’ll make sure you get the help you need now.’

  ‘Thank you,’ Zeena said quietly, and I could have wept. ‘I stood it for as long as I could,’ Zeena continued, her voice tight. ‘But in the end I thought I’d rather die than carry on in the same way. I hated myself and started to think about swallowing bleach to kill myself. I told my teacher I wanted to go into foster care. I said I was being abused but I didn’t give her any details. I thought my father might leave me alone once I was in care, but he didn’t. He kept phoning and threatening me that if I told anyone he would have me killed. He also wanted me to work. His income had stopped because Tracy-Ann was always saying she was ill. He tried to blackmail me and said he couldn’t afford to feed my brothers and sisters if I didn’t work. I was so worried. I kept going to their school to make sure they were OK. I was going to give in and do what he wanted. Even when I caught those diseases my father wanted me to work.’

  There was silence. ‘So you didn’t get the STIs from your husband?’ Tara asked after a moment.

  ‘No, from the clients,’ Zeena said. ‘They were supposed to use a condom but not many of them did. I wasn’t surprised I caught something.’

  ‘And your phone and all those numbers?’ I asked, trying to make sense of it all.

  ‘My father gave me that phone so he could call and tell me when I had to work. Sometimes a client would phone him during the day and he’d text or phone me at school to tell me he’d be waiting to collect us and take us to the house. I had to tell Tracy-Ann. Then he got worried that if I told you what was happening and the police got involved, his phone number would come up on my phone and be traced to him. So he started using his friends’ phones to call me – he told them his phone was broken. That’s what all those numbers were.’

  He’d certainly been shrewd at covering his evil tracks, I thought bitterly. I would never have guessed the true nature of those numbers.

  ‘My father gave that telephone number to Farhad, to keep him happy,’ Zeena added.

  ‘Is Farhad in this country?’ Tara asked.

  ‘No,’ Zeena said. ‘I let Cathy believe he was because I couldn’t tell her the truth. I’m sorry,’ she said again, turning to me.

  ‘It’s all right. I understand,’ I said. ‘You’re doing very well to be telling all this now.’

  She gave a small sad smile and wiped her eyes again.

  ‘But you were married in Bangladesh?’ Tara asked.

  ‘Yes. Exactly as I told you. That was all true. Farhad phones occasionally when he can afford it. It’s not often. He’s poor. He still believes he’s coming here when I’m sixteen. He doesn’t know what my father and uncle have been doing to me. When you heard me on the phone, Cathy, it was my father I was speaking to.’

  I nodded.

  There was silence, and then Norma asked, ‘Is there anything else you can tell me, Zeena?’

  ‘I don’t think so,’ Zeena said. ‘I don’t want to go into all the details now. I’ll wait until I give my statement. I worry about my brothers and sisters,’ she added anxiously.

  ‘I shall be seeing them all tomorrow,’ Tara said. I knew there would be renewed safeguarding concerns in respect of Zeena’s siblings now, for if her father had been abusing Zeena then it was possible he was also abusing her younger brothers and sisters.

  ‘Will you give them my love?’ Zeena asked.

  ‘Yes, of course,’ Tara said.

  ‘I’ll arrange to take your statement as soon as possible,’ Norma said. ‘I’ve got to clear a couple of things first, but I hope it will be tomorrow. I shall also be arranging for you to stay in a safe house as soon as possible.’

  ‘Do I have to go?’ Zeena asked.

  ‘Yes,’ Norma said. ‘Until the trial, which is likely to be some months away.’

  ‘I’ll still be your social worker,’ Tara said.

  ‘Thank you,’ Zeena said quietly.

  ‘You’ll stay here with Cathy tonight,’ Norma clarified. ‘Then tomorrow I’ll take your statement and hopefully move you to a safe house the day after.’

  ‘So soon?’ I asked, shocked.

  ‘Yes,’ Norma said. ‘It’ll only be a matter of time before her father finds out Zeena is here. I need to get her out of the area. In the meantime I don’t want Zeena to leave this house at all.’

  ‘Can’t I go to school tomorrow?’ Zeena asked. ‘If Cathy takes me in the car.’

  ‘No,’ Norma said. ‘I’m taking his threats to your safety seriously, and he and your uncle will be out on bail again soon.’

  ‘We must do as Norma says,’ I said to Zeena, touching her arm reassuringly.

  Zeena nodded.

  ‘Can I have your phone now, please?’ Norma asked her. ‘The one your father gave you.’

  Zeena tucked her hand into the pocket of the jogging top she was wearing and, taking out the small collapsible mobile, passed it to Norma.

  ‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘Is it password protected?’

  ‘No,’ Zeena said.

  Norma put the mobile into her briefcase and then said, ‘We’ll go now and let you have your dinner. I’ll phone Tara as soon as I know when I can take your statement.’

  ‘I’ll fetch the suitcase,’ I said.

  ‘Thank you,’ Norma said.

  Leaving Zeena in the living room I went upstairs to her room where I knelt on the floor and reached under the bed for the suitcase. I’d always known the case was there – I vacuumed around it – but I hadn’t given its contents another thought, believing they were old clothes that Zeena no longer wore. I returned downstairs with the case and went into the living room, where I placed it at Norma’s feet.

  ‘Thank you,’ she said. Then to Zeena, ‘Is everything in there?’

  ‘Yes, I haven’t opened it since I first arrived.’

  Tara put away her notepad as both women prepared to leave. ‘You’ve done well, Zeena,’ Tara said. ‘I know how difficult this is for you, but we’ll make sure you’re safe and well looked after. I’ll phone when I know the arrangements for tomorrow.’

  Zeena gave a small, subdued nod.

  She remained on the sofa while I saw Norma and Tara to the front door.

  ‘I’ll be in touch,’ Tara said sombrely as they left.

  ‘Thank you for your time,’ Norma added professionally.

  I closed the front door and returned down the hall to Zeena. Whatever could I say to her?

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Other Victims

  Sometimes there just aren’t the words to express what we are feeling. The magnitude of the horror unfolding is too great. A girl of nine raped by her cousin, abused by her father, then forced into marriage at thirteen and used as a prostitute. I was overwhelmed and struggling to hold back my tears, but I knew I had to stay strong for Zeena’s sake.

  She was sitting on the sofa staring numbly across the room, her face expressionless. She looked as lost and overwhelmed as I felt. I sat beside her and slipped my arm around her waist, and she rested her head on my shoulder. We sat together in silence for some time, gazing unseeing across the room and out through the patio window to the garden beyond. I tried to find something to say that would help, but everything sounded inadequate, even banal, beside the suffering she had endured. Presently, Paula came downstairs, having heard the front door open and close as Norma and Tara had left. She looked into the living room and I smiled at her. Appreciating Zeena’s unhappiness and that we needed some time alone, she re
turned upstairs.

  Five minutes later the front door burst open as Lucy came in like a whirlwind.

  ‘Hi!’ she called from the hall.

  ‘Hi,’ I returned.

  Zeena raised her head from my shoulder. ‘I wish I could stay with you guys,’ she said.

  ‘So do I. But Norma is right. It isn’t safe for you here any longer. I’ll phone, and visit.’

  ‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘Will you go and see my brothers and sisters at school, and make sure they’re all right?’

  ‘Yes, I can, but try not to worry. Tara will be making sure they’re safe.’

  ‘Hi everyone!’ Lucy said, arriving in the living room. Then, seeing our sadness, ‘Whoops. Sorry. Who died?’ Sometimes an irreverent remark is just what is needed.

  ‘It’s OK,’ Zeena said, rallying a little. ‘I’m all right now.’

  ‘Good,’ Lucy said. Then to me, ‘What’s for dinner, Mum?’

  ‘Nothing yet,’ I said.

  ‘I’ll help you make it,’ Zeena offered.

  ‘Am I excused as I’ve just got back from work?’ Lucy asked.

  I smiled. ‘Yes, love.’

  Zeena came with me into the kitchen while Lucy went up to her room. We put together a quick cheese and vegetable pasta bake; I had intended to cook meat but there wasn’t time for that now. Once the bake was in the oven Zeena went upstairs, and presently I heard all the girls talking. When I called them down for dinner it was obvious that Zeena had told Lucy and Paula some of what had happened to her – that her father had been abusing her, and that she would be leaving us soon. They were shocked and saddened, but like me they reassured Zeena that they would keep in touch and text and phone.

  ‘We’ll miss you,’ Lucy said.

  ‘You’ve been like another sister to us,’ Paula added.

  And for a moment I thought we were all going to cry.

  That meal was very quiet and sad as Zeena’s suffering hung in the air. I think we ate because we had to, not from any real enjoyment. When my children were little I protected them as much as possible from the experiences and suffering of the children I fostered. But now they were adults I could no longer do that, and the children and young people we fostered often took comfort in sharing what they’d been through with them. Hearing stories of suffering, though, hadn’t hardened or desensitized my children in any way. And I knew that what Zeena had been through would stay with them for many weeks, months and even years, as it would for me.

  If we needed any convincing that it wasn’t safe for Zeena to stay with us any longer and that she had to do as Norma said and move to a safe house, it came later that evening.

  At half past eight I was in the living room with Paula and Zeena when Adrian returned home from work. He called hi from the hall and then came into the living room with a letter in his hand.

  ‘It’s for you,’ he said, dropping it into Zeena’s lap. ‘Someone must have pushed it through the letterbox. It hasn’t got a stamp.’

  I saw the danger immediately, but it was too late to intercept the letter and stop Zeena from reading it. It wasn’t Adrian’s fault; he thought he was doing her a favour by passing her the letter and hadn’t appreciated the implications. Zeena was sitting on the sofa next to Paula and I leaned over from my chair so I could read the envelope. It was typewritten with Zeena’s name but no address.

  ‘Perhaps it’s from Tara or Norma,’ Zeena said innocently, slitting open the envelope.

  I doubted it.

  I watched her face as she read the short note and then passed it to me. Adrian had gone into the kitchen for his dinner by now, but Paula was looking at me anxiously.

  Dear Zeena,

  Please come home and stop telling lies about our father. He is a good, kind man who loves us. You are upsetting him and making your mother ill by your lies. You are dishonouring our family and bringing shame on us all. I hope you will take notice and come home and tell your social worker you have made a mistake.

  Love …

  It was supposedly signed by her brothers and sisters.

  ‘My father wrote it,’ Zeena said.

  ‘Yes,’ I agreed. ‘It doesn’t sound like the language children would use.’

  ‘And they never call me Zeena, but Zee,’ she said as I handed back the letter.

  So while the contents of the letter hadn’t been distressing for Zeena, the fact that it was here at all was.

  ‘Do you think my father is still outside?’ Zeena asked with a shudder.

  ‘I think it’s unlikely,’ I said. ‘But I’ll check.’ I stood up.

  ‘Be careful,’ Zeena called, worried.

  ‘Don’t go alone, Mum,’ Paula said.

  ‘I won’t.’

  I went into the kitchen where Adrian was about to put his meal in the microwave.

  ‘Sorry, love,’ I said. ‘Could you save that for a couple of minutes and come with me to check out the front? That letter was from Zeena’s father and he’s not supposed to know she’s here.’

  ‘Sure, Mum,’ Adrian said, and set down his plate.

  I felt much braver with my strapping six-foot-tall son beside me, and we went down the hall while Paula and Zeena stayed in the living room. He opened the front door. It was still light outside and we went down the garden path and onto the pavement, where we had a good view up and down the street. There was no blue Ford Fiesta in the road, and no strangers, just a couple of neighbours, one of whom was watering his front garden. He waved to us and we waved back.

  ‘Thanks, love,’ I said to Adrian, satisfied.

  We returned indoors. Adrian went into the kitchen for his dinner and I went into the living room, where I reassured Zeena her father wasn’t outside. The letter had shocked her and reinforced how important it was for her to move, and quickly.

  ‘You need to show Norma that letter tomorrow,’ I said to her.

  ‘Yes, I will,’ Zeena said. ‘She’ll know what to do.’

  We returned to watching the television, although I don’t think any of us could concentrate on the programme. I know I couldn’t. I kept going over Zeena’s disclosures to Norma and Tara in my head, and the years of abuse she’d suffered in silence. Her school couldn’t have had any idea what was going on at home or why her father sometimes collected her and Tracy-Ann, or they would have raised concerns earlier. Little wonder, I thought, that Zeena hadn’t been fazed when she’d been told she had contracted two sexually transmitted diseases; she’d been half expecting it. And of course she couldn’t give the clinic her boyfriend’s contact details so he could be tested – she didn’t know them. And there wasn’t a boyfriend, but many men, all abusing her. I also thought of the well-intentioned but naïve advice I’d tried to give her about relationships and boys when she’d been upset. How ridiculous that seemed now set alongside what had really been going on. I knew I’d got it badly wrong and in a way I felt I had let Zeena down. Surely as a highly experienced foster carer I should have been able to find out the truth sooner? But how, I didn’t know.

  That evening I stayed up later than usual, sitting in the living room and thinking. Then when Adrian and the girls were in bed I wrote up my log notes. There was no need for me to go into detail in respect of what Zeena had told Norma and Tara, as Tara had taken notes, so I gave a résumé of the day, and only referred to the meeting where Zeena had disclosed the abuse. I mentioned that Norma would be taking a statement from Zeena, and that she was going to move her to a safe house as soon as possible. I included that a letter had been posted through our door, what it said, and that Zeena was sure it was from her father.

  Despite going to bed late, I couldn’t sleep that night, and at 1.45 a.m. I got up and made myself a cup of tea. I tried to be quiet so I didn’t disturb the rest of the house, but I hadn’t been in the kitchen long before the door slowly opened and Zeena came in, wearing her dressing gown.

  ‘I couldn’t sleep either,’ she said quietly.

  I smiled. ‘Would you like a cup of tea?’
<
br />   ‘Yes please,’ she said.

  I made the tea and we took it with a packet of chocolate biscuits into the living room; I find tea and chocolate biscuits a good remedy for insomnia. I closed the living-room door so we wouldn’t disturb the others, and we sat in the easy-chairs.

  ‘I should have told you sooner, Cathy,’ Zeena said. ‘But I was scared of what my father would do. And also what you would think of me.’

  ‘Zeena, I can understand why you would be scared of your father. But you surely didn’t think that I would blame you for what happened?’

  She concentrated on the mug of tea she held on her lap. ‘My parents always treated me as if I was to blame,’ she said quietly. ‘So eventually I believed I was. My father kept telling me I was a dirty little whore and that’s how I felt – how I still feel.’

  ‘Oh, love, please don’t. It was never your fault, believe me.’

  ‘But I feel so dirty, and it’s the kind of dirt that won’t wash off. It’s deep down inside me – here.’ She put her hand to her chest and looked at me pitifully. ‘My heart and my mind tell me I’m dirty,’ she said. ‘I thought you might think that too, for letting the abuse continue as long as it did. I should have told someone sooner.’

  I was aware that sexually abused children were often made to feel this way by their abuser. ‘You didn’t tell because you were scared of what your father and uncle might do, and also your father had brainwashed you into believing it was your fault. I’m sure he told you that if you said anything to anyone they would blame you and no one would ever love you or speak to you again.’

  ‘Yes,’ she said sadly. ‘That’s exactly what he said.’

  ‘It’s what most abusers tell their victims,’ I said. ‘It’s part of controlling them and forcing them to do what they want. The majority of abusers are known to their victims. Often they are a member of the family or from the extended family, which makes it even more difficult for the victim to tell. Not only might they not be believed, but the rest of the family could turn against them. I’ve heard of cases where the victim had been so terrorized and brainwashed by her abuser that the abuse continued into adulthood – into their twenties. Such was the power the abuser had over their victim.’