Two teenage girls, one a 13-year-old who gave birth nine days ago and another a 12-year-old who is five months pregnant are presently receiving medical treatment after being removed from the Region 1 backdam by Members of the Guyana Women Miners Organisation (GWMO).
President of GWMO Urica Primus told Stabroek News yesterday that residents in the area made contact with the organisation’s regional representative Stephanie Miguel, who along with another member went into the backdam on ATVs and removed them from the area.
The girls were taken to the Port Kaituma Hospital before being transferred to the city where, Primus explained, they had to be given blood.
“Apparently their blood count was low as they had not been eating,” Primus said.
In sharing the details of the case Primus reiterated concerns about the lack of welfare and child care facilities in the hinterland regions. Both girls, who are cousins, have allegedly been impregnated by adult men.
She noted that the 12-year-old is the daughter of a woman who died after being raped by her husband.
The woman who had recently had a caesarean delivery refused to have sex with her husband. The husband in a fit of rage allegedly raped her and after she begun haemorrhaging dragged her into the yard where she died. This happened in October of last year.
This man who is yet to be arrested for this crime is also allegedly responsible for the pregnancy of his 12-year-old daughter.
Primus explained that though the Child Care Protection Agency had made the decision that their grandmother would take custody of child and her siblings after her mother’s death, this did not happen and they have since remained in the same circumstances.
“I don’t know if they did a follow up,” Primus said. She added that Region 1 does not have a welfare agency and when the GWMO contacted the Child Care Officer, a Mr Phillips, he informed them that the girls once discharged from the hospital would have to be housed at the Amerindian Hostel.
“These are young traumatised girls who have never been to Georgetown and who have no support system; the hostel is no place for them,” Primus lamented.
Region 1 has been the source of troubling statistics. Recently a Survey of Adolescent and Youth Sexual Trends in Guyana conducted by the Guyana Responsible Parenthood Association (GRPA) revealed that a “disproportionate number of rapes” seem to be occurring in the Region.
While Region 1 represented only 8% of the 392 persons surveyed the region accounted for 26% of all rape victims in the survey which was conducted in eight of Guyana’s 10 regions.
“The same facilities for child care available in Georgetown are needed nationwide, not just in major cities,” Primus said.
