By Tahiyah Hussain
The children are always watching. As they grow into their teenage years, it is not surprising that some begin to practice what they see around them their whole lives: violence.
In the Indo-Caribbean community, domestic and gender-based violence is an unfortunate but stark reality that has resulted in numerous deaths in recent years. Such violence, specifically against women, is not new and has existed since Indian Indentureship where laborers would murder their wives out of suspicion of infidelity. But this violence does not start nor solely begin in a marriage, teenagers experience dating abuse as well. Yet, we rarely hear from Indo-Caribbean teenage dating abuse survivors because their stories are strategically concealed and hidden out of fear and shame.
Founder of South Queens Women’s March, legislative attorney, and teen-dating abuse survivor Aminta Kilawan-Narine explains, “We gloss over teenage relationships so easily because it’s not a marriage. People might assume, ‘Oh, this is just something that is going to go away overnight or it’s just teenage love. Oh, it’s hormonal.’ There’s all these ways people try to excuse away abusive relationships that happen when young people are still finding themselves, still finding their voices, which makes it that much easier to fall into a teenage dating abuse situation.”
Many do not think of teenage dating abuse as a possibility in the Indo-Caribbean community because the very premise of dating is not traditionally allowed. But the reason we rarely hear of Indo-Caribbean teen dating abuse experiences is that teenagers are accustomed to hiding their relationships since they were never allowed to date in the first place. As Kilawan-Narine explains, “I was not allowed to have a boyfriend or to date or anything like that. But while many of us are not allowed to, we still do it.”
Just because we don’t hear of teen dating abuse does not mean it does not exist. Multiple reasons prevent teens from speaking up: fear of families finding out, public shaming, threats from their partner, loss of freedom, and more.
Teenagers are at the forefront of dating abuse as they step foot in dangerous relationships without even knowing it themselves. Coupled with the pressure of hiding their relationship from family and society, the red flags become too blurry to notice. Kilawan-Narine continues, “The tricky part is because it was teenage love, I was all wrapped up in it. The abuse itself was really messing with my head. In my mind, I was thinking, “This person loves me. He’s doing this because he loves me.”
Symptoms of teen dating abuse are not restricted solely to physical and sexual violence. It also includes stalking, harassment, and psychological abuse which are often overlooked. The abusive behaviors may seem subtle at first but begin to grow and build on one another. Kilawan-Narine shares how in her teenage relationship, “Things started to change pretty rapidly in that I was starting to realize the level of control that was expected of me from things like what I was wearing. My ex even took me shopping to make sure that the clothes I was wearing were appropriate for his standards, in terms of [being] very modest.”
While it becomes clear that these are controlling behaviors, in the moment of abuse, most teenagers have no idea and brush off these behaviors as something insignificant. For Kilawan-Narine, these behaviors only worsened over time. Controlling behaviors took the shape of her boyfriend eavesdropping on all her conversations, prohibiting her from singing at her local temple, speaking to people at the grocery store, and taking possession of her debit card. She explains, “It was building up and building up and building up. But it wasn’t until I started to realize when he started hitting me, that this wasn’t okay at all.”
Why were these red flags of controlling behaviors deemed okay but the hitting immediately regarded as unacceptable? Both are forms of abuse. In Indo-Caribbean families, youth are used to seeing toxic marriages growing up and deem it to be normal. According to Kilawan-Narine, “It is very warped. In our culture, that sort of [violence] gets perpetuated too because when you don’t see healthy relationships around you, you start to think that this is acceptable behavior.” So how can we stop this intergenerational act of violence and abuse within households? How can we show youth what a healthy relationship entails?
If we do not educate our youth and engage in conversations with them, we cannot expect our teens to notice and understand what is unacceptable in a relationship. Teens must know that the violence and toxicity surrounding them is not what they should aspire to reproduce. The earlier they identify and recognize the symptoms of teen dating abuse, the earlier they can seek support and leave the relationship. We need to break the dating stigma by discussing it within our households. We need to stop caring about what people would say and focus on the health and safety of our youth. By using education and conversations as a beacon of change, we can bring this generational violence to an end.
Teen dating abuse can have detrimental impacts on youth who are concealing their relationships and suffering in silence. When Kilawan-Narine as a teenager lied to her boyfriend about her location out of fear for her safety, he showed up in the parking lot of the movie theater she was in and physically assaulted her. She explains, “And he’s like, ‘Oh, just come in the car.’ I get in the car and he starts slamming my head over and over.” and “he’s like, ‘Why did you lie?’ He was reprimanding me.” It is the manipulative and controlling nature of abusive relationships that forces teenagers to return and remain in contact with their abusers. The abuser often knows where they live, go to school, and who they talk to. It is this fear that prevents youth from speaking up and from leaving a relationship. Suffering in silence becomes intolerable.
We must get over shame and taboo by discussing dating openly within a household. Abuse does not need to go undetected. Teenagers living with their parents allow for opportunities for parents to step in and identify something as being off. Kilawan-Narine explains, “I think my parents knew that there was something really wrong with what was going on. But because it’s so taboo, we didn’t really talk about it in the house. There was a shame associated with it. I’m not supposed to be having a boyfriend to begin with.” The Indo-Caribbean community needs to undergo a cultural shift towards accepting and discussing teens dating so that teens do not have to suffer any longer in the shadows.
Healing from teen dating abuse comes in many shapes. Kilawan-Narine did not find solace in counseling sessions that lacked the cultural context needed to understand her trauma. Rather, she healed through community. After attending an Indo-Caribbean community gathering hosted by the Jahajee Sisters, Kilawan-Narine was surrounded by empowering women who both inspired her and educated her. She healed by gaining her power back through writing about her own teen dating abuse experience for a blog on the website of a faith-based non-profit she co-founded named Sadhana. Allowing other women to feel seen and not alone was a moving factor for Kilawan-Narine’s healing journey.
As a survivor of gender-based violence, Kilawan-Narine founded South Queens Women’s March after reading about multiple women being murdered in her local communities at the hands of their husbands. South Queens Women’s March is impactful in removing barriers such as cost in allowing youth and women to access free, yoga, art activities, and sound baths. Instead of receiving traditional therapy unsuited for the Indo-Caribbean community, South Queens Women’s March offers culturally responsive counseling services every week for youth to meet with counselors who know the culture, the stigmas, and the taboos.
“If this information is not accessible to people, we’re just going to continue these cycles of violence over and over and over. And it has to end with our generation,” said Kilawan-Narine
In partnership with Day One, South Queens Women’s March holds free counseling sessions at its office on Wednesdays from 12pm-5pm. To sign up for this resource, email Aminta Kilawan-Narine at aminta@southqueenswomensmarch.org or call/text 929-367-0010.
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The views expressed in this column are solely those of the writer and do not necessarily represent the views or position of the THE WEST INDIAN.