Dear Editor,
I refer to your editorial captioned “A real tragedy” dealing with the kidnapping of a baby from a l3 year-old girl.
At a child abuse workshop I attended in August 2004, a nurse had reported that four 12-year-old girls had recently given birth at the Port Mourant hospital. She said that the families of the girls were unwilling to press rape charges against the men responsible and preferred to have the girls marry the men. At that time the age of consent was 12 years; now it is 16.
The event of a 13-year-old girl, Ms. Shevonne Green, giving birth would have never seen the light of day had her baby not been allegedly kidnapped. Ms. Green, with help from her family, friends, social organizations, and perhaps, even the father of the child, would have quietly taken care of her child, as many other under-16 mothers struggle to do. Few, except those who knew, would have cared.
The question that begs to be asked is this: Knowing that the mother was under 16, did the health care personnel who delivered the baby make a report to the police? If not, why? Aren’t they required by law to report suspected cases of statutory rape, as well as other cases of child abuse, to the police?
Parents and primary child care-givers are the first line defenders against child abuse. When that line fails, as it often does, the second line defenders are the health care providers who treat the tragic consequences of child abuse. Health workers must be required by law to report such abuse to the police so that the offenders can be apprehended. Such matters cannot be left in the hands of families, and this is one clear instance in which the state must intervene to protect those whom the first line and second line defenders are unable and unwilling to protect.
Oh yes, Stabroek News, there are “many other Shevonne Greens to be found, girls who have slipped through the cracks and who remain vulnerable and invisible because of poverty”, and also because the first and second line defenders against child abuse have failed them.
Yours faithfully,
M. Xiu Quan-Balgobind-Hackett
