“At age 11 she (mother) gave me away again, to my grandaunt,” she recalls shaking her head. The husband also molested her, and they used her like a slave, demanding she cook, clean and do their grocery .
“When I was 13, she gave me away again”, she sighs. “That lady abused me very badly and her brother also used to molest me”.
Later she passed for Thompson Town High, but a bad sore foot prevented her from attending regularly, so she was placed in a class for slow learners. When she placed first in her exams, everyone realised she was bright.
Her mother placed her in a better school in Clarendon’s capital, May Pen, and sent food on the weekends. “Nobody was there to protect me. I could go anywhere I wanted to go. I tried suicide two times because I felt nobody loves me. When my monthly (menstruation)come, I had to cut up clothes to make pads to see me through. I have nothing, no roll on until I met my son’s father at age 16,” Avorina says.
He gave her money, sent her to school and bought her a sewing machine. Later she took her exams and earned a Grade two in Clothing and Textile. That was the beginning of her journey into the dressmaking business.