Dear Editor,
A lot of attention has been given in the media recently to sexual predators. There are lots of sexual predators – in particular “dirty old men” who pass as respectable citizens trampling the rights of the child, but who cares, there is nothing to be gained exposing these people.
Last Sunday October 11th, 2009, I literally had to fight tooth and nail to get my sixteen year old son out of the iron grip of one of these “big dirty old men” of this very sick Guyanese society. This man had deceives us into believing that he was a decent man who could be entrusted with our son to teach him to become a computer mechanic.
My son left home at seven hours (7 am) on Saturday to go to the workshop, when he did not return at nine hours (9 pm) I tried in vain to contact the big man but he had turned off his cell phone, I finally caught up with him after midnight and he told me this “cock and bull” story that they had attended a birthday function for one of his employees and that he was bringing my son home right away, I was damn mad with him. Two o’clock came, then four and he never did show up.
Even after the intervention of myself and wife and a number of the extended family early that Sunday morning outside his big Prashad Nagar grilled house, where two pit-bulls were station at the gate – the man refused to come out and release the boy. A report was lodged at the Kitty Police Station and it was only with the intervention of the police that the “big man” finally released the boy.
In a drunken state he said he had no notion that the boy was in the house or that his relatives were outside.
The police departed and the child was taken to a private hospital for a medical examination which proved that nothing had happened to him sexually.
What we learnt is that this “big man” had taken our underage son to a night spot to celebrate one of his employee’s birthday and he induced the child to drink alcohol, after which the man took him back to his home under the pretence that he had spoken to me and I had agreed that he could stay at his home since it was already late – that was a blatant lie!
We are grateful to God that our son is alive and well with us today. We are thankful to our extended family for their solidarity and support, more so to the police officer who with dignity and respect performed his duty in a professional way.
Of course this “big man” holds himself as one of the “untouchables” of Guyanese Society. He has a canopy of affiliation – that places him above and beyond the reach of the law which is poisonous to any democracy.
In any civilized society where the justice system is made to function; the “big man” would have been made to account for the pain and anxiety he has caused this family to suffer.
Yours faithfully,
(Name and address
provided)
