Woman Details Alleged Abuse She Suffered While in CDA Care from Police and Others – Watch Video

January 18, 2023

Protesters garbed in black took to Duke Street in Kingston on Tuesday to demand the resignation of the head of the Child Protection and Family Services Agency (CPFSA), Rosalee Gage-Grey. As the protesters called for Gage-Grey to step down, one woman detailed the alleged abuse she faced while in the care of the Child Development Agency (CDA).

Calls for Gage-Grey to step aside followed reports of the CPFSA’s relationship with Carl Robanske, the founder of the Embracing Orphans charity, who was flagged in America for inappropriate sexual contact with a child. One protester, Monique Baines, showed the scars she was left with after years of abuse and called for action to be taken against her abusers.

Baines said that she was taken by the CDA and placed in a home at a young age. While taking part in the Take a Child Home for Christmas programme, Baines said that she was placed with a family that provided her with everything that she could ever want and bemoaned going back to the orphanage, so she begged to stay. But she was later allegedly abused by her foster mother’s sons, husband, and members of the community.

According to Baines, she reached out for help, writing a letter to a CDA officer detailing the abuse she had suffered, but they revealed the letter’s contents to her foster mother, who later beat her for being a traitor. After years of abuse, Baines shared that she ran away at 14 years old and sought help from another CDA officer at church, who placed her back in CDA care.

Bains disclosed that after following a group of girls to the Stony Hill Police Station, she was accosted by an officer who threatened to lock her up after she refused his advances. He then allegedly forced her into the kitchen and at gunpoint, forced her to perform oral sex on him. After the assault, Baines said that she was declared emotionally unstable by the CDA, so no action could be taken against the officer.

Baines went on to describe how the abusive cycle continued, with a member of the church and the CDA’s board requesting sex after giving her money. Baines told onlookers that as long as abusers are allowed to roam freely, there is no point in giving victims counselling.

Watch the video below.