Topless dancer stabbed for refusing sex

A topless dancer is counting her blessings and hoping that one day she can leave the job behind, after she was stabbed and her throat was cut because she refused a man's sexual advances.

Mary*, 29, said that apart from the dancing, she has no other work experience.

"Mi a dance from mi a 15 years old, from mi a go high school. It was survival," she said. She told THE WEEKEND STAR that days leading up to the incident, she got a gut feeling to quit doing topless dancing. But with three children to feed, she decided to take a job offering. Mary insists that 'doing business' (having sex for money) was never her thing.

"I only dance, and this is something that I usually lay on the table and make clear that I don't sell my body. I was dancing and a guy came and tip mi $1,500 and buy mi a drink. After that, him tell mi say mi must go home with him, suh mi tell him no," she said. Mary said the angry man threatened to kill her, but she continued her shift, and even forgot about the argument. But as she left the establishment and waited for a cab, the unimaginable happened.

"Him come to mi and say, 'Hey gyal, yuh take mi fi idiot, a who send you?' And mi start answer him back and tell him mi nuh sell mi body. Him have a bottle in his hand and him broke it in mi face and mi drop. When it broke, him come over mi and just slice mi throat and cut mi ears, and just ride off," she said. Mary, who was scared silent, was rushed to the hospital by the police. At one point, she wondered if she had died.

"But the doctor came and give mi an injection and start deal with mi, and mi start talk again," she said. She received multiple stitches to her neck and face and is at home recuperating. The perpetrator is still at large.

Mary acknowledged that many persons may turn up their noses at topless dancers, but said none of the detractors ever walked in her shoes.

"Mi madda dead when mi a seven, and mi father dead when mi a 12. Mi madda died from a sickness and mi father, stepmother, sister and niece died in a house fire in Maxfield. After dat mi get placed in a children's home," said Mary, who first got pregnant at 16.

"Mi never get a chance to experience mother and father love. Mi life did hard, and mi a try make it better fi mi children. Nothing about mi life nuh easy," she added between tears. She said she would trade her dancing shoes for a regular job or a chance to upgrade her education, but she worries about feeding her children.

"See, I am not dancing now because of my condition; and when mi kids come to mi and mi can't go in mi bag and provide for them, a mad mi feel like mi a mad. People nuh understand, enuh," she said.

*name changed to protect identity