What should have been a carefree Carnival trip to Saint Lucia turned into a nightmare for one young British woman, who says she was sexually assaulted after leaving a major Carnival event.
Her story, shared in WhatsApp messages, quickly spread across social media. She alleges three men took advantage of her while she was heavily intoxicated after a popular carnival fete. She described the assault as deliberate and organised.
“This felt like a very planned-out attack,” she wrote.
“It also felt like they knew what they were doing, and I most certain there done that before. And for some reason the police in Lucia is dragging their feet. Those fellas need to be stop.”
Her words capture more than her own pain. They echo a cry raised by women for years: My body is mine, no matter the state.
As her story spread, so too did the familiar chorus of victim-blaming. Some argued that women should not allow themselves to drink to the point of vulnerability. Others questioned why she was alone and why she trusted people she did not know. The weight of these and similar questions falls, as always, on a woman and not on the men who chose to exploit her.
Women across Saint Lucia and abroad have pushed back forcefully. One response read, “So what if she was drunk? Who gave those rapists the right to take advantage of her?”
Another woman added, “A woman being drunk should not peak [sic] your interest to have sex with her. If it does, then you are a rapist too.”
The survivor herself rejected the idea that her intoxication excused the assault.
“I came to Lucia to enjoy the carnival season and I was wrongly stripped of that by three lowlifes,” she wrote.
“I might not be the first girl, but I will be the last,” she said, hinting towards her aim for the perpetrators to be brought to justice.
Others expressed anger at what they see as inaction by authorities. It has been alleged that one of the accused is the son of a police officer.
“Girl and tell her don’t stop fight, I know of someone they did it too. Omg I hate to see this. The police did nothing! I’m so pissed,” one message read.
As of publication, questions to the Royal Saint Lucia Police Force went unanswered.
Some, like Shea Amedee, are calling for survivors to be empowered.
“I’m just messaging cause reading what you posted has a lot of impact I can’t imagine what she’s going through and it’s not those guys first time doing something like that I’m trying to see if I can form a group to help victims like her speak out more to make a difference for other girls if you know who she is can you pass on this number to her to see if she wants to be apart of the group to help put those young boys in jail where they belong.”
The incident has once again spotlighted the broader issue of sexual violence in Saint Lucia and the way it is handled by authorities. Survivors frequently cite delayed investigations and a lack of urgency from the justice system, compounding the trauma of their experiences.
Though Carnival is meant to be a celebration of freedom, joy, and cultural pride, for women, freedom remains incomplete when their bodies are treated as vulnerable to exploitation. The message that has emerged from this woman’s story is unambiguous; whether sober or drunk, modest or flamboyant, a woman’s body is her own. Consent is not conditional.
This case may still be unfolding, but the voices it has amplified carry a weight far beyond one incident.
