A woman spoke out — because someone had to

AS a child of six or seven, Monica Rowe skipped up to the local shop on an errand for her father, an adventure that took her no more than one hundred yards from her home.

It was the kind of neighbourhood and time where people could leave their front door open without fear of intrusion and children could roam around freely in play without threat of interference.

At the door of the shop, a man drove up beside her and beckoned her inside his car. Monica obeyed, cheerfully informing the man that her house was only down the road. He panicked, shoved her out the door, and drove off.

Somewhat confused, Monica reported the peculiar incident to her parents when she got home and her father instantly convened one of his famous family meetings which were the most efficient means of raising an issue of importance in a household of nine children.

“Dad apologised to me,” Monica recalls. “He said we should have had this discussion before — about not getting into cars with strangers. He could have blown up and shouted at me for being so stupid. A lot of parents would because it’s a natural reaction, but he didn’t.

He took all the onus off me so I didn’t feel bad, I didn’t feel guilty and myself and my brothers and sisters wouldn’t feel afraid or ashamed to talk about these things again.”

Children bear a disproportionate burden of fear and shame in society, Monica believes, which in reality belong solely to those responsible for their suffering.

In the middle of last year, Monica was listening to a debate on clerical child sex abuse on the Joe Duffy show and she noted that among the many callers who rang to express their outrage, there was not one priest.

Monica picked up the phone and wondered aloud where all of the many sound-minded good priests were, and why they were not demanding that the papal response to the situation was to ensure that the protection of children, rather than the institution of the Church, be of paramount importance.

She quoted Joe a piece from the Bible, Matthew 18:6, “whoever harms one of these little ones who believe it me, it would be better for him that a millstone hung about his neck and he drowned in the sea.”

“I came away from that thinking, what am I after doing?” she says, pointing out that the only movement she was ever part of before was the parents’ committee of her son’s school. “I thought, I don’t ring radio shows. What must I have sounded like?”

Yet a year later, Monica was on air again and in the space of a few broadcast minutes, she had started the ball rolling on an extraordinary event.

The child rape law crisis had emerged after a young man successfully challenged the constitutionality of the law which prohibited him from pleading not guilty when charged with having sex with an under-age girl.

The young man had been a teenager at the time of the offence and the girl was a willing partner who claimed to be older than she was so the law was viewed by some as being unduly harsh in the circumstances, but once it was declared unconstitutional, a 41-year old offender, dubbed Mr A, jailed for the rape of a 12-year-old girl, was able to go court and successfully argue that he too had been denied his constitutional right to defend himself.

It was the scenario practicing lawyers and the Law Reform Commission had warned for years could happen if the law was not amended and yet nothing was done to prevent it.

Mr A was released from prison, his young victim was horrified, her mother spoke out publicly, albeit anonymously; statements of blame and denial flew across the floor of the Dáil and radio phone lines hopped with indignation.

There was genuine fear that child rapists in their dozens would apply for release on the same grounds and a mood of helplessness pervaded the calls. Nobody seemed to know what to do with their anger and frustration. Once more Monica found herself joining in, only this time, she announced to the listening public that she would make her views known outside the Dáil. If anyone cared to join her, she would be only too happy to welcome them.

Calls began flooding in and the Rape Crisis Network, CARI (Children At Risk in Ireland) and One in Four pledged their support. A couple of days later, on June 2 last, the White Flower Marches took place on Kildare Street and about 20 other locations around the country where thousands turned out with white flowers, white armbands, banners and loudspeakers to demand that the Government act to protect the nation’s children.

For the whole afternoon, the occupants of Leinster House were treated to chants of “no more abuse”, choruses of “We Shall Overcome” and speeches from abuse survivors and their supporters that carried over the high gates, up the entrance and all the way into the corridors of power.

Monica was terrified.

“I went into town on the morning with my mum for breakfast and all I wanted to do was to go home. People asked me did I need anything, but I couldn’t think. I just felt sick.

“I wasn’t afraid of challenging authority but I was very fearful that, because of something I had done, vulnerable people were going to speak out. These people had been let down by the system before and I didn’t want them to risk being hurt again just because I’d said: let’s have a rally.

“A couple of minutes before I went up to the podium to speak I had a word with God. I said: Look, God, you have told me not to be afraid so I will be brave but please let the words come to me. The most amazing calm came over me. At that moment, I knew I was supposed to be there. From then until the last interview for television at 6pm I felt I was meant to be there so everything I said was said with meaning.”

Despite her references to God and quotations from the Bible, the 45-year-old mother of one from Cabinteely in south Co Dublin says she is not “holy, holy”. “I would be a very committed Christian but that’s not what this was about. It wasn’t a religious protest and it wasn’t a women’s march as some of the media said. It was a humanitarian demonstration.”

She credits her upbringing with giving her the interest and courage to speak out. Her mother, Ursula O’Farrell, is a counsellor and psychotherapist who encourages her children to be true to themselves.

Her late father, journalist Myles O’Farrell, worked for RTÉ, and found himself before the tribunal of inquiry set up in 1970 in the aftermath of the station’s hugely controversial investigation into the scourge of illegal money-lending.

“My dad was one of these people who always believed when the truth has to be told, it has to be told, without being over the top but without being shy about the facts. It put him under a lot of stress but he was never afraid to speak out where truth and justice were threatened. He and my mother are probably the people I admire most in this world.”

Her own family now, husband Eddie and 13-year-old son, Kevin, have had to get used to Monica’s name popping up in the media but have made adjusting to life in the spotlight easy for her.

“After I went on the radio and there was all this reaction and the phone started ringing non-stop, Eddie just said to me: “what have you done?” I was wondering that myself. But he felt the exact same way as me. He’s quieter about things than I would be but he was completely behind me.

On the day of the protest, he hung a white flag over the shop to show his solidarity.”

The shop is the business Monica and Eddie run together but she insists on keeping its name out of print as she says it would appear like an inappropriate attempt at publicity-seeking.

Kevin smilingly refers to the protest as “the riots” and teasingly asks his mother when she’s planning to stage the next one. “He was great. I was able to say to him, look son, we have a wonderful relationship and I treasure it — just understand for this next couple of days, it’s going to be mad and I’m going to have to ignore you for most of it. He understood.”

Monica hasn’t any more protests planned at the moment but when the Government set up a special Oireachtas Committee on Child Protection to examine the many issues raised by the summer’s legislative crisis, she quickly campaigned for an extension of its deadline for public submissions.

The Committee issued its invitation to the public to submit their views during the height of the holiday period and allowed just four weeks for the process.

Monica and organisations such as the Children’s Rights Alliances successfully argued for a ten-day extension but she still believes that many of the ordinary people who protested so passionately outside the Dáil on June 2nd will have been excluded.

Monica is happy to engage in public debate on the subject but she would like to be busier behind the scenes, helping children to be better able to fend off abuse and to raise the alarm when it is threatened.

She is a qualified pre-school teacher and has run courses on confidence building for Transition Year students. She is currently running courses with first year students, designed to help them cope with the huge changes taking place in the lives and to build their confidence and a sense of self worth that will stand to them for the rest of their lives.