A ‘pastor’, a religious man from the church ‘Assemblée de Dieu’, is being accused of sexual abuse by a teenager aged 17 years. The girl, who lives in Baie Lascars, told her story to the officers of the ‘Child Development Unit’ on the 24th of August. A secret which she kept for so long because she had been threatened by her alleged abuser, who is well-known to her and her family, since they were members of the same church. A police enquiry has been instructed in that matter.
The committee of the Rodrigues Assembly of God received two mothers who explained that their daughters had been assaulted by the same pastor and the pastor was called by the committee and the latter categorically denied the facts. With the relevance of this case, the committee decided to hand in a letter of resignation to the pastor.
The alleged victim stated that when she was 14 years old, she was coping with problems within her family cell. But then, the ‘pastor’, a married man of about 50 years, who is also a father of several children, proposed to help them. However, he advised the teenager not to have conversation with her parents. It was then that he started to talk about sex with the girl. And one day, (when she was 14) the ‘pastor’ invited her in a guest house in Port Mathurin to talk about the bible verses. And without a second thought, she went to meet him. Once there, the man gave her something to eat as well as a non-alcoholic drink. After having consumed these stuffs, she felt uneasy and thought she had been intoxicated. And while she was in a daze state, the ‘pastor’ started to kiss her and caressed her all over her body, before having sexual relation without her consent. She was not in a position to defend herself as she was not in a normal state. After the facts, the man advised her not to talk about it to anybody. After this episode, they had sexual relations on several occasions in different places. And on several occasions, he had given to her some ‘small pink pills’ to swallow. During the month of April this year, her mother saw several messages on her mobile phone and when she had questioned her daughter, the latter told her what had been happening to her since three years. The girl also stated that the ‘pastor’ threatened her to put drugs at her place in Baie Lascars so that she gets arrested if ever she intends to report this case to the police. She is willing to be examined by a doctor and can show the police all the places where they had sexual relations.
After the sad events of child sexual abuses and child pornography which came into light recently in Rodrigues, one can easily see the similarities between the means used to exert pressure on the victims. Namely threat, intimidation, fear, abuse of weakness on a vulnerable victim, breach of trust, blackmail, religion, and so on. The authorities and the police have appealed to the population as well as the victims to come forward and denounce these unacceptable and intolerable acts committed against innocent victims and children.
