On Monday, a nine-year-old boy was found dead on his parents’ poultry farm in a remote Berbice village. It was reported that he had hanged himself—taken his own life—after he made a request to go visit a friend and this was denied. If he did commit suicide, Richard Mohammed would be counted as one of this country’s youngest victims, raising the question of why.
It boggles the mind that a child so young could have felt so desperately hopeless as to decide that death was the only option. Was Richard Mohammed depressed? Did he attend school? Did no one notice his state of melancholy? No one wakes up suddenly one morning and decides that it’s the day they will die, particularly a child so young. There must have been signs that all was not well with young Richard. Unfortunately, those close to him either missed it or just did not care. Either way, Richard’s tragic case constitutes child abuse.
Early this month, the police announced that they were investigating an allegation that an 11-year-old girl had been raped by a police officer at the Beterverwagting Police Station in January. The police said in a press release that the child was “a prisoner” who was being held at the station after she was charged with “wandering” and was remanded into police custody. Their investigations revealed that on the day the sexual abuse of the minor was alleged to have taken place, she had left the police station surreptitiously and was subsequently found at her father’s home. This of course hints that the rape might have occurred elsewhere, although it was not spelt out. However, the fact is that the child was sexually abused; proven the police say, by medical examinations done both before and after she was placed in the lockups. The police, it would appear, were not pursuing the evidence of earlier sexual abuse of the child. While sad and outrageous, this is somehow not surprising. The question, asked for the umpteenth time by women and children’s advocate Ms Karen De Souza of Red Thread in an interview with this newspaper just over a week ago, was what was an 11-year-old girl doing in the police lockups in the first place. There is no fit place to house juveniles, particularly girls who are charged criminally, while they await trial or a decision by the court. Though those found guilty are usually sent to the New Opportunity Corps at Onderneeming on the Essequibo Coast, the lack of temporary holding facilities prevails throughout the country and is not just a Georgetown issue. The lament that placing juveniles with or close to adults accused is harmful to their psyche has been made by Ms De Souza, other social activists and in this column ad nauseam. A holding centre has since been built at Sophia, but for reasons unknown it has not yet been opened. Mysteriously also, it has been decided by the powers that be that it will only house children 14 years and over. The 11-year-old accused wanderer would not have qualified to be placed there.
In the course of the same interview, Ms De Souza made the salient point that children should not be detained and criminally charged with “wandering.” A child who is found wandering is a child who would have run away from home. Ms De Souza advocated that the reason behind the child running away was what ought to be addressed. Criminalising the child does not remove the problem. In fact, if for instance, a child runs away from an abusive situation at home and is then charged with wandering and is placed before the court with the abuse coming to light, he or she would feel doubly abused. This could make rehabilitating that child an impossible task. It might be one of the reasons why some juvenile offenders graduate to become adult offenders after they have left Onderneeming.
On Sunday last, we published a story in which June Azore, an amputee, recounted the horror she and her 14-year-old hearing and speech impaired daughter had endured at the East La Penitence lockups after her daughter was detained on a larceny allegation.
The Ministry of Human Services and Social Security’s Child Protection Agency, overwhelmed as it is with cases of troubled and endangered children would know first hand that the instances listed above are but a few of the disquieting issues facing our children.
But right at the top of the list is the abuse by officialdom; the fact that children are still being denied their basic human rights and to some are regarded as “just children,” which is taken to mean that they do not count. Can a country where the exploitation and abuse of children is shrugged off have a future? Those who continue to contribute to the abuse by their uncaring attitude should answer this question.
