The badly chopped 16-year-old North West District girl was working at a Kayamoo – a barrack-like accommodation for sex workers – before she met her attacker less than a year ago, residents of the Port Kaituma area said yesterday.
Up to press time last evening the child was still a patient of the Intensive Care Unit of the Georgetown Hospital. Her face is badly swollen and she sustained chop wounds to the head, arm, hands, abdomen and breasts. She is hooked up to a life support machine.
Residents told this newspaper yesterday that the girl, who looks petite for her age, met the attacker, said to be her 22-year-old lover, at a Kayamoo. The residents said the man later moved the girl to his mining camp located at Big Creek Backdam, NWD. She was residing there with the man until Sunday night when he attacked her after reportedly catching her in a compromising position with an employee.
The employee, Junior Joseph of Lot 17 Onderneeming, Essequibo Coast was chopped to death during the incident.
The suspect who hails from the Pomeroon River area and who also rents a house at Oronoque, Port Kaituma remains at large.
The Child Care and Protection Agency along with the Ministries of Amerindian Affairs and Human Services have launched an investigation into how the girl ended up living in a mining camp.
Shocked
A Partnership for National Unity (APNU) Region One parliamentary representative Richard Allen told Stabroek News that he visited the girl and was shocked at what he saw.
He was adamant that he will raise this issue until it is dealt with because “young girls’ lives should not be damaged like that. We need to protect them”.
Allen said he knew the child as well as her relatives. He said the teen’s father was stabbed to death several years ago during a drunken argument and the last he knew was that she was living with her mother and stepfather.
He told this newspaper that he met the couple on Thursday when they travelled to Port Kaituma after someone told them that their daughter had died. They later found out that she was still alive. He said the couple wanted to travel to the city to see her but did not have the finances to do so. They later returned to their home.
Allen said he would make contact with the couple when he returns to the area next week. He said that so far no relative has visited the teen.
He said he was certain that the teen’s relatives had knowledge of the situation she was in. “But then there is the economic situation. There is nothing there for the youths to do and the adults just take advantage of their bodies,” he noted stressing that there are many young teens living at mining camps or selling their bodies to miners for money. Based on his explanation, this is a way of life in the North West area and the authorities are doing very little to tackle it, he charged.
He said that as a parliamentarian he plans to confront this issue head-on. He said he will contact the subject minister since he believes probation officers are not looking into the interest of young girls in the region. He added that there are Human Services personnel based at Port Kaituma who are supposed to be looking into these issues but are not.
Allen said that during his visit to the teen he met an official from the Amerindian Affairs Ministry. “I am happy that they are involved but lots more still needs to be done,” he stressed adding that the destruction of lives of young girls cannot be allowed to continue.
An infuriated Simona Broomes, president of the Guyana Women Miners Organization had told this newspaper that this incident should be an eye-opener to all involved. She said the time has come for the issue of trafficking in young girls to be urgently addressed and tackled.
She said too that her organization had received numerous reports from the North West area about the trafficking of young girls. She said plans were made to visit that area but the lack of money is a setback.
Human Services Minister Jennifer Webster told this newspaper last week that there is a special team which would travel to mining areas and other places where human trafficking is said to be rampant. She explained that there is a counter-trafficking department and this year the intention is to increase the number of staff.
The man had suspected that the girl was being unfaithful to him and decided to hatch a plan to catch her in the act.
Some time last week, the man travelled out of the area leaving his girlfriend in charge of the camp.
Some time during the weekend, the suspect informed his girlfriend that he would be sending in supplies for the dredge and that he would travel to the location two or three days after.
On Monday, as promised, the man sent in a 4×4 vehicle loaded with supplies for the dredge and caught another vehicle which travelled closely behind.
Reports are that when the man arrived at his camp he found Joseph and the teen in a compromising position and went berserk.
From all indications, he caught Joseph off guard and began chopping him on his neck as the teen stood helplessly nearby. When Joseph’s neck was almost severed from his body, the man turned his attention and his cutlass on the teen.
The badly-wounded girl was transferred to the Port Kaituma Hospital by persons in the area before being air-dashed to the city where she underwent emergency surgery to close her wounds.