In the popular imagination, the Caribbean is often typified by striking images of sunny days at the beach, fresh coconuts, colourful road-side fruit stalls encompassing all the wonders of the tropics, the warmth of the islands’ peoples; all cast alongside the pristine, sparkling waters of the Caribbean Sea. This is indeed an accurate snapshot of Caribbean life, if in part. This is what sells the Caribbean; that it is a haven away from bitterly cold winters and smart-phone agendas. This chapter does not seek to detract from the vivid imagery, the tourism-driven advertisements of the Caribbean, since this is part of our way of life and neither does it aim to de-construct those ideas associated with Caribbeanness. Rather, the main aim of this chapter is to build other dimensions onto that of the ‘paradisiacal’ Caribbean in an attempt to introduce the reader to the multiple historical, social, political and economic layers that lie beneath its idealistic surface. This contextualisation is important in understanding child sexual abuse (CSA), the focus of this book, since issues of domination and subjugation that underpin childhood victimisation do not emerge in a vacuum and are located within particular socio-historic specificities. The activities of international development agencies, and the research and policy developments crafted in their wake, have tended to subsume the Caribbean as a territory within the category ‘Latin America and the Caribbean’. While the reasons for this may be wholly pragmatic, this has contributed to several misconceptions, first, that there are more similarities than differences among the Caribbean and Latin America and, secondly, that the Caribbean is homogenous. This has also meant too often, that in research concerning children, Latin America is held as speaking for the Caribbean (excepting for those countries that receive specific focus because of their extreme challenges such as Haiti). Within the Caribbean, the most wide-ranging research on child sexual abuse to have been conducted to date (Jones and Trotman Jemmott, 2009), does indeed make the point that of the six countries studied, which collectively were said to be representative of the region, similarities far outweighed differences and the argument for harmonised regional approaches that share expertise and resources was made. Nevertheless, there is a case for localised responses that can address differential nuances in manifestations of abuse when needed and it is important, therefore, to understand the Caribbean both as a whole and also, as a sum of its individual parts. The chapter starts by exploring some of the economic, socio-demographic and cultural similarities and differences that exist within the Caribbean – to re-examine the notions of oneness and perceptions of homogeneity. It goes on to explore some of the challenges the Caribbean has faced in recent history to give, first, an appreciation of the other side of paradise and, secondly, to provide comment upon the historical context from which the contemporary Caribbean emerged. Finally, this chapter discusses some of the present-day characteristics and challenges of the Caribbean.

The Caribbean is comprised of its archipelago, from Trinidad and Tobago at the southernmost tip, to Jamaica in the north and the Bahamas. Many of these countries are politically independent, but the Caribbean is also home to the Dutch, inclusive of the Netherlands Antilles; French, inclusive of Guadeloupe, Martinique, St Barthélemy and St Martin; British, inclusive of Anguilla, British Virgin Islands, Cayman Islands, Montserrat and Turks and Caicos Islands; and United States (or American) West Indies, inclusive of Puerto Rico and United States Virgin Islands; and many other small island states. As part of the British Commonwealth, Belize and Guyana are also included as Caribbean, by some definitions, although they are geographically parts of Central and South America respectively. The collective history of Belize and Guyana as members of the British Commonwealth and the British West Indies supersedes their geographic locations and demonstrates that the Caribbean is more than just an island chain.

The UWI now has four main campuses in Mona, Jamaica; St Augustine, Trinidad; Cave Hill, Barbados and the Open Campus, which serves a further twelve Caribbean countries.

This was exemplified in no better way than when West Indian cricketer Brian Lara broke the world test run record in Antigua in 2004, a record he previously broke in 1994 (perhaps coincidently against England on both occasions; for Caribbean spectators adding further fodder to the inherited memories of the coloniser/colonised relationship). Lakhan (2005, paragraph 2) aptly describes the nuanced power differentials of the coloniser and colonised by suggesting, ‘Together, these countries built a team that could challenge their erstwhile colonial masters ‘in the pre-independence era and thereafter. Spencer (2008, paragraph 7) explains that the leaders of the Caribbean in the mid-1960s sought ‘West Indian unity beyond the boundaries of cricket’, so important was the game in the consciousness of Caribbean people that it could be identified as a unifying factor beyond even formal economic and political agreements.

It is well known that the Caribbean was a centre of slavery during colonisation by various European nations. The English-speaking Caribbean, though changing hands from country to country, was largely influenced by English domination. Post re-discovery, the plantation system dominated the economic landscape of these islands, whose goods and profits served the growth of the British motherland (see Best, 1968, for detailed discussion of the plantation system). This was perhaps the beginning of dependence, if maladaptive, on foreign intervention of extraneous power-holding over the Caribbean nations’ economies. The eventual retreat and forced obscurity of indigenous peoples, namely Caribs, from Dominica’s trading system is testament to the ultimate power which the European colonisers held in the mid-1700s (Honychurch, 1997). Slavery and its plantation system had only one aim, to profit the motherland; anything detracting from this mission was not to be in the equation.