A 16-year-old student of a private school on the Corentyne ingested a poisonous substance in an attempt to end her life after her guardians abused her in the public around 2:45 pm on Wednesday.
The girl of Johanna, Black Bush Polder who is supposed to be sitting the Caribbean Secondary Education Certificate (CSEC) examination is presently a patient at a hospital.
Stabroek News learnt that the girl ingested the poison after her grandparents took drastic steps to reprimand her following complaints that she was misbehaving.
The girl who is in the care of her paternal grandparents was staying with an aunt on the Corentyne to sit her exams. Teachers of the school said the girl’s condition has improved but the grandparents have refused to allow her to write the rest of her exams.
Reports are that her grandparents and another woman went in search of the girl and caught up with her at an internet cafe close to the school where she had gone to call her mother who is overseas.
Sources told this newspaper that on the way the grandparents were chiding her and she was afraid that they would physically abuse her when she got home.
They said too that she then made an excuse to escape and told them that she wanted to go to her friend’s house to pick up her phone.
When she got to the house she ran upstairs and locked herself in a bedroom and refused to go home. Her grandparents kept insisting that she should come out but she refused.
In the meantime she called the police three times and gave them directions but they did not show up. About 15 minutes later the girl emerged from the bedroom after the grandparents promised that they would not beat her.
But when she came down the stairs they picked up a piece of rope and tied her hands, hitting her in the process as she screamed loudly.
They then dragged the screaming girl to the car and drove off.
Contacted, the girl’s grandmother told Stabroek News that they had not planned to tie the girl’s hands but they were afraid that she would try to open the car door to escape.
She said they saw the piece of rope on the friend’s stairs and decided to use it. The woman said the girl was resisting and her grandfather “give she two slaps.”
She explained too that they had received complaints that instead of being in school wearing her school uniform the girl went to a fast food outlet dressed in casual clothing.
She said what angered her was that when she confronted the girl about it she lied at first but eventually admitted.
The woman said too that when they picked her up she saw when the girl gave a friend her phone and the friend left to go home. The girl then told her she had to get the phone back and asked her for directions to the friend’s house.
According to her, she “mind them [the girl and two younger siblings] since she was three-years-old and try meh best to bring them up in the right way.”
She lamented that she was 64-years-old and wakes up early to cook for them to send them off to school in time and that “it very hard” that she was behaving in an unruly manner and was not showing her any respect.
She said when they got home the girl left to go and have something to eat and shortly after the girl’s sister alerted her that she had ingested the poison. She then saw the girl frothing and they rushed her to the hospital.
