The Innocence of a Girl in The Batey

Esther Bonnat Michel (1994) Bayaguana, Monte Plata. She had her first daughter at age 14 and her second daughter at the age of 20. She does not currently study or work. She has a national identity and electoral card.


When I was a child, my family and I lived in the Santa Alicia batey for a long time. For me and the other children who lived there, the most joyous thing to do for our bellies was going to eat sugarcane when there was nothing to eat. It was a sad place to be when those who came to cut sugarcane fought, and cheerful when children and teenagers played ball in the afternoon. I thought I would live there my whole life because there was no progress other than my father planting, weeding and cutting sugarcane. I had to take his breakfast to the sugarcane fields, about three kilometers away on foot. It was very sunny. On the days that it rained, he would come home later because he would take advantage that it wasn’t hot, to cut more sugarcane.

My dad had the opportunity to build a house in the town of Bayaguana, Monte Plata province. For that reason we moved there; I was excited, but I did not know I was about to live in hell. When we moved there I began to contemplate which school I would be going to. When I went to school they took me to my class, I sat down and began to observe that everything was very different, and it was not fun like in the batey where we all sat together, and we raced to get a seat at the only blue bench in the classroom. I continued to observe that during recess the children brought money for a snack and not like in the batey where during recess I went to my house to see if the food was ready because they usually cooked late.

They rang the bell for classes to start, and when they went through the attendance list they mentioned my last name and the teacher asked: “Where does your last name come from?” I did not answer. And everyone else began to make fun of me. This went on daily. They bullied me, beat me up, and called me “Haitian ” every day. So many years of the same thing that I began to get used to it. When they called me “Haitian,” I called them “Dominican,” and so on. I had a childhood very isolated from a social life and, if by mistake the neighbors complained about me I would get a good 40 or 50 correazos [belt whippings]. This happened all the time. I remember this one time a neighbor complained about me, she said I threw stones on top of her house. My dad made me take off my skirt and lower my panties and bend over on a wooden chair and said: “You have to count!” He started with the number 1 until he reached 40. I told him that I would turn him into the police for abuse and that one day I would run away from his house. He didn’t say anything to me. I couldn’t stand the burn from the bruises, they were big and some dripped blood.

When I became a teenager, a boy lived next to my house, he was my secret boyfriend, since my father would absolutely not allow it, and if he found out it was going to be my death. I would pay my siblings Gedeón, Mirella and Zacaría to make sure they wouldn’t say anything to my parents. One day my little brother Gedeón told me to give him five pesos and I told him I didn’t have it. I felt worried sick, because I knew what could happen. I went and stole the five pesos from my mother’s pocket, but when she saw that she was missing the five pesos, she kept saying: “It probably fell somewhere!” and didn’t continue looking for the money. So I gave it (to my brother Gedeón) so that he could buy the quimalito1 that he liked so much and even more because they cost only one peso.

Then, during my relationship with that boy, I got pregnant when I was 14 years old…almost 15.2 This happened because I did not have sexual education which led me to not tell anyone and when I told him, he was 16 years old, he told me to have an abortion because we were very young and that led me to accept! But the months were advancing and, every day I became more desperate.

My little brother, Gedeón who was 7 years old, found a letter that I had sent to my boyfriend [where I was asking him] what we were going to do because my belly was starting to show. Gedeón came running towards my sister Mirella, 10, and told her that I was pregnant. Confused and surprised they went to tell my second brother, Zacaría, who did not keep the secret. He insisted on telling our father, but the rest of my siblings didn’t want to.

Then they let me know that they had knowledge of the situation and that people on the street were beginning to speculate that I was pregnant. As nothing lasts forever, at seven months’ things get more serious and more visible. I remember that a man named Felipe told my dad to take me to the doctor because I looked pale, that it could be a disease or anemia. And my dad stopped and began to watch me and [decided] to take me to the doctor.

Early the next morning, when we went to the hospital—the first thing they provided was a pregnancy test and everything came to light: my dad went crazy, he left the house, I fell into depression… but everything happened because of my restricted upbringing. My baby girl was born, but I still did not feel well. Although I was in love with him, knowing that he had reacted in that way and that he did not accept responsibility because he was young…

I thought that after my daughter’s birth everything would be fixed. It was worse because there was an argument every day with the family of my daughter’s father. They sued my dad, saying that my dad wouldn’t let them see the girl and that he was denied his right as a father. The situation got so strong that — once — the girl’s grandfather aimed a gun at my father; He asked my dad what he wanted and why he [bothered them] so much since for him my dad was an obstacle for them to meet the baby girl. You reap what you sow, but this bad harvest brought a good and innocent fruit.

Two years passed and we moved to Monte Plata because my father already understood that he was in danger and that family was a threat. We sold the house, and went to Monte Plata. There I finished my high school, I had another life, I was recovering and it was much better because the relationship with my dad was fixed. Until [he] — again — began to forbid me from going out… to treat me the same, and he even hit me several times—when I was already a mother—because he understood [that] to make me reason or scold me for something, he had to hit me. In spite of everything, I had nice experiences. After eight months of moving to Monte Plata, I met a young man who I thought was different… we started dating, but secretly behind my father’s back because he still had the same attitude.

The young man I was dating was an arrogant show off because he worked in the Banreservas bank, but he treated me with affection; but secretly because he did not want anyone to know. I didn’t ask anything because I was in love. During that time I had another pregnancy. When I learned this, I quickly told him because I thought I could avoid a scandal because he worked and had the possibility of moving me [in with him] and not having to make my dad go through another disappointing experience.

And, when I told him, he told me to abort because he was not prepared to have a child and that he was not going to marry me because he does not want a serious relationship now. Then, as he saw that I was doing nothing, he sent me two pills to take with a red soda. Then it was worse because my wounds had been reopened… I made the decision to tell my dad before he found out another way.

He threw me out of the house. I went to a friend, but [I] couldn’t even walk from how destroyed I was. From that day my crying began. I suffered a lot because I had to leave my daughter and my family and, surprisingly, my best friend told me that I had to leave her home. I cried, I cried nonstop. From there I went back to my house, without thinking what my dad was going to say or how he was going to react. When I arrived, my mother told my dad that she didn’t recognize him and how could he treat me like that.

From there I went to an uncle in Higüey. My uncle received me with much love and support, which was what I needed at that difficult time. Time came and went. My uncle started not giving me food. He lived with his wife and his wife worked. And she sometimes did not come home because she could not stand my morning sickness. I started to go hungry. I looked like a snake that had swallowed a frog. You could only see my belly because of the hunger that I was experiencing. I started asking for money in the street to buy bread because I couldn’t even cook because there was no gas in the house. There was no (electrical) power in the house, I looked like a zombie in that house.

I remember on the 1st of January 2014 at one in the morning— when everyone was celebrating the New Year, I felt bad, sad… I walked over to a cousin’s house who lived nearby, but along the way I was thinking about my family and my daughter because it was the first year I spent outside my home. I went walking and decided to stop in the middle of the road… so a car would crash into me… so I could die and end the pain I felt. A vehicle came at full speed and there was no way I wouldn’t die… and the vehicle slowed down and the man dismounted from the vehicle and asked me if I was crazy. It was then that he noticed that I was crying.

And my dad found out because the neighbors told my uncle, and my uncle called my mom. Then my dad couldn’t stand that almost everyone who knew me — back in Monte Plata and the batey — told my dad to send for me. My dad decided to send for me, but first he called me saying to come back, that he loved me and I returned to my house. And my daughter was born and, later, the girl’s father took responsibility over her and I had to go through a lot to become a professional… to have a better life and to guide and educate my daughters so they don’t go through the same thing that happened to me.

  1. Homemade popsicle ↩︎

  2. The Dominincan Republic ranks 5th in girl and adolescent pregnancies in Latin America and the Caribbean. According to a survey of the Encuesta Nacional de Hogares de Propósitos Múltiples (ENHOGAR 2009), 22% of adolescents between the ages of 15-19 have become pregnant. The highest rates are in the provinces of Azua (36.9%) and Pedernales (35.1%). Data from UNICEF↩︎