Survivors

Joan 

Joan (b. 1973) is an American clinical child psychologist specializing in child sexual abuse and recovery. She often visits Africa as a volunteer for the United Nations Children’s Fund and is a former UNICEF executive committee board member. She is one of the founders of Project Angel.

Joan was born into a poor rural family in a tribal region of the African nation of Uganda. Her father built farm equipment supplies while the entire family of seven worked at the family owned local fruit stand. The unstable political conditions created vast poverty in the region and the subsequent socioeconomic and emotional debilitations generally contained therein.

Period of abuse

At age 3 she was subject to a clitoridectomy performed during a ritual ceremony. This ritual form of mutilation is usually performed without any anesthesia and often carries emotional and psychological scars that greatly overpower the physical ones.

At age 9 her father faced unemployment when the demand for farm equipment dramatically decreased. Her parents were unable to support all of their children and chose to sell Joan and two of her sisters as indentured child laborers to a nearby village farmer. She was taken from her family and would never see her parents again.

Life on the farm was little more than long days of manual labor with no educational or emotional development. Slave labor proved ineffective for the farmer. When his land and property were confiscated by government agents he sold his entire child labor force to any interested buyers.

At age 11 she was sold to a child prostitution trafficker. She was taken from her two remaining sisters and sent to a new city where she was forced to engage in sexual acts with a variety of adult men. The forced prostitution was a form of debt bondage from which most exploited children could never hope to repay the supposed debt. She was considered old when compared to some of the other sexually exploited children. Since most of the men who frequent brothels that have sexually exploited children prefer virgins, her vagina was repeatedly altered surgically to give the impression of an intact hymen. According to the United Nations approximately 1.8 million children as of 2000 are forced into prostitution.

By age 14 the emotional and psychological trauma of years of child sexual abuse and forced isolation from her family manifested itself in increasingly rebellious and anti-social behavior. The subsequent punishments were often severe beatings and long periods of forced starvation and isolation. By now she had become too difficult for her abuser to control and too old to generate a substantial income or to sell to another child trafficker. After her final refusal to engage in sexual acts her abuser beat her savagely. He broke her nose and permanently blinded her right eye. She was then evicted from the brothel and left to survive on her own.

Therapy and subsequent results

At age 16 she was homeless and barely surviving through prostitution, begging and theft. The political climate in Uganda had changed and she came to the attention of United Nations Children’s Fund workers. She entered a group home where she received much needed medical attention and her first access to education since early childhood. She quickly showed a natural inclination toward education and expressed an interest in children’s issues. It is recommended that all survivors undergo psychological counseling to help them understand their feelings of guilt and diminished self-worth. Joan had no access to such therapy until she entered the services of UNICEF and the subsequent results of her counseling helped her to develop a positive self-image and a healthy mental outlook.

In 1993 she entered Makerere University with the assistance of university scholarships and private donations. After earning her degree in developmental psychology she continued her education in the United States. In 1999 she earned a Master of Science degree in clinical child psychology from Zanvyl Krieger School of Arts & Sciences at Johns Hopkins University. Three years later she earned a Doctorate of Science degree in clinical developmental psychology and trauma and recovery from the same institution.

Current activities

During her graduate studies in the United States she began regular visits to Africa with the United Nations Children’s fund and other international aid organizations. She assisted other volunteers and developmental clinicians in bringing aid and trauma counseling to children in several economically and politically devastated nations. In 1998 she returned to Uganda for the first time and was able to locate one of her surviving sisters. Her parents as well as at least one other sister and one brother had apparently died earlier.

Today Joan is a respected child psychologist and author of child welfare issues. She is married and has no children.





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