Help A Harbour Island Family In Desperate Need

Dear Friends, + Family,

As many of you know, a very dear friend of our families was raped over the summer on Harbour Island. She is an extremely kind and loving minor who is also learning challenged and suffers from severe epilepsy. Her rape resulted in a pregnancy which had an almost immediate effect on her health, resulting in an increase in seizures. Unfortunately, I can’t share too many details as there is a criminal case currently underway but her mother, a Haitian woman who has lived and worked on Harbour Island for 20 years, and her older sister, who is a lovely member of the Harbour Island community, are currently being charged for “Conspiracy to commit Abortion.” The mother is an incredibly hardworking and upstanding island resident who has dedicated her whole life to loving and caring for her children, cooking for her family, her work, and being an active member of her church. She and her older daughter have already spent two weeks in Nassau between questioning at CDU and Fox Hill Prison. They were released with very large bail and awaiting next steps regarding their trial.

For months we have done all that we can to enlist the help of legal counsel, women’s advocates, doctors, and anyone else we can think of to intervene on their behalf. While the alleged rapist is out on bail and back on the island, the family is still separated, and the children are currently under the control of Social Services of Nassau in two separate facilities only furthering their trauma. We have been able to enroll the victim in private school in Nassau, she is getting weekly counseling and now able to see a neurologist more frequently. She is stable and making progress in her recovery. Unfortunately, her younger brother who has nothing to do with this case, is still separated from his mother with no communication and we are desperate to get them reunited and him back in school after so many months of living in social services.

Any help that you might be able to provide for the ongoing medical, educational, and legal needs to support this family would be much appreciated. We have been covering these costs for the past five months and they are mounting as we need to continue to help them through their legal battle and support the victim through her recovery. Many of you have kindly offered to help and it’s greatly appreciated but we certainly do not want anyone to feel obligated. I am sorry that we can't share more as there are many troubling details to this case but we obviously have to be careful to protect her as a minor and not affect the investigation in anyway.

With much love and many thanks,

Alexandra Oppmann Malloy, Melissa Sellars, and Robin Oppmann

Dec 2023-See updates for current status