The relatives of an unruly thirteen-year-old girl are uncertain about their next move since more than two years of intervention have not succeeded in persuading her to abandon a self-destructive path.
“She is a beautiful child, only thirteen but so much have happened and I am praying for her because I cannot give up on her, but we don’t know what else to do, it is really sad,” an aunt of the child told the Sunday Stabroek recently.
She said the child is the daughter of her youngest sister who passed away recently from cervical cancer, and this has only made the situation with the child worse.
In fact it was only a week last Sunday the child’s mother was laid to rest, but the aunt explained that long before the mother found out she was ill and became bedridden the child was out of school and rebelling. After the child stopped going to school the family had enlisted the help of the welfare officer in their community, but intervention has not helped the child and they are now frustrated.
At present the child lives with her father, but the aunt said she does not listen to anyone, has the wrong friends and continues to be involved in the wrong activities.
While relatives are unable to trace the root cause of the child’s behaviour, her aunt did say that her father worked in the interior and her mother was away from home for many hours during the day as she worked to supplement the family income.
According to the aunt, after the child’s behaviour changed and her mother was out of the house from 4am to 5pm almost every day, she took the child into her own home. “She use to live with me and I would take her to church and so on and ensure that she goes to school,” the woman said, adding sadly that she was forced to return the child to her parents because of some domestic issues.
The child was 12 at the time, and even though she was doing well in school she became very rude to her mother and started to be involved with boys and was eventually expelled from school. The aunt recalled that one time she ran away from home and the police and welfare officer were called in. Late that night she was found drunk in front of a disco and while it was difficult she returned home.
She was beaten by her father but the police later warned the man that should he lay his hands on her again he would get into trouble. The aunt admitted that the man had given the child a severe beating at the time.
It was around that time the welfare officer began to work with the child but was unable to effect a change in her behaviour.The woman told the Sunday Stabroek that her sister had five children between the ages of six and 21, and the teenager is the only girl. She said a 16-year-old son was also acting up and the pressure became too much for her sister at one time.
It was around that same time she recounted, that her sister would have known she was ailing, but she did not tell anyone until it was too late. When the woman could bear the pain no longer she sought help, but by then the cervical cancer the doctor diagnosed had reached stage four.
“My sister got very sick at that stage and since then everything went way down,” the woman said.
Her voice breaking, the woman described how she travelled to Georgetown with her sister in an effort to make her last days easier, as she was in tremendous pain. But by then the teenager’s behaviour had deteriorated, and one time she even visited her mother on her sickbed and was very rude to her. “She told my sister that she was no good mother even as my sister lay in pain, and it was very hurtful and I had to ask her to leave,” the woman said in tears.
With the mother and aunt in the city the girl was left with her sister-in-law as the father was in the interior, and did as she pleased with no sort of adult guidance.
“Things went really out of hand, I never really give up on her; I use to pray for her, she still is the baby,” the woman said.
And even then she would text her mother some rude messages and then one day she disappeared and relatives later heard that she was in the interior.
Help
The child’s aunt said when the mother’s condition worsened, she wanted the two to see each other before she died, and she began a frantic search for the child. In her quest to find the child she approached President of the Guyana Women’s Miners Association Simona Broomes and begged her to go into the interior to find her.
However, one day before Broomes and her members left to locate the child she returned, but by then the mother was in a coma and before she arrived in Georgetown her mother had passed away.
“Even though I know she was dying, when she died it was still hard because she was my baby sister and to see her die like that knowing that she died very sad because of what was happening to her children, especially my niece, made me very sad,” the tearful woman said.
She admitted that the children’s father was somewhat abusive towards them and this may have driven the girl and her brother to ‘act up.’
At her mother’s funeral the girl did one of the scripture readings after which she said: “If you have a mother, love your mother when she is alive because when she is dead you have no mother to love.”
The aunt said she was heartened by this comment and felt that the child may have changed, but she still blames her mother for her behaviour and continues to misbehave.
The aunt related that two of her nephews have since moved in with her, but she is unable to take the girl who lives with her father but refuses to go to school.
“My sisters and I sit and talk to her and told her we are willing to help her and that she should go to school and be somebody in life, but she is not listening to us,” the woman said. She went on to say that the child has not told them why she went into the interior or what happened while she was there, and would just cry when asked about it.
“It is hard for me too, because the whole situation has taken a toll on my marriage and my health and sometimes I don’t know what else to do,” the frustrated woman said.
She said she contacted Broomes out of desperation, as she really wanted her niece to be brought out of the interior and she knew of no other agency to turn to for help.
The aunt hopes that all is not lost for her niece and said she wanted to speak about the issue publicly because she does not know where else to turn for assistance.
Armo Backdam
Meanwhile, Broomes told the Sunday Stabroek that the child was in the Armo Backdam in Region 7. She believes that someone would have warned those who had the child that members of her organisation were making plans to visit and they may have sent out the child. She related that they had made arrangements to hire a vehicle whose owner travelled into the interior and was expected to return the following day to take them to the area.
“But that very next day when we were supposed to go in, the child came out and we believe that they [the persons she was with] were warned,” Broomes said.
She said the child has since told her that she was taken into the interior by a friend who said she wanted her to work at a bar-b-que she was holding in the backdam. The child related that she became uncomfortable when she was approached by men for sex, and she indicated she wanted to leave.
Another girl she met in the area who danced striptease at the function also indicated that she wanted to leave after she was reportedly not paid the amount of money she was promised. Broomes said from her experience the two would not have been allowed to leave without a confrontation so shortly after entering the backdam.
Broomes said she continues to be concerned about the number of young girls who travel into the interior in an effort to make a life for themselves, but are not aware of the dangers that await them there.
She said her organsition is willing to help the child who she feels is just crying out for some care and attention that she may not have gotten in her home circle. “She told me that she is willing to return to school and we are going to work towards making that possible for her,” she told the Sunday Stabroek.
Since the organisation’s birth in January of this year Broomes and her members have been at the forefront of advocacy for the rights of female miners, and have been addressing the issue of young girls in the interior and trafficking in persons.
She said that since they rescued four girls from the Itaballi backdam, they have developed a relationship with police ranks at the Itaballi toll gate. According to Broomes the ranks, especially during this August holiday, are on the lookout for any child – male or female – travelling into the interior. Once a child is detected they are stopped and their guardians are then put in contact with members of the organisation who would then verify that the children are indeed with the parents or have parental permission to spend some holiday time in the interior.
Broomes said they also have a very good relationship with the Officer in Charge at the Bartica Police Station.
She said that her organisation has been working with no funding and members put their hands in their pockets to facilitate the work, although recently a fund-raising activity was held in Bartica which was very successful. She queried why the work of the government agencies does not seem to be reaching females in the mining sector.
