In the midst of congratulatory notes to pre-teens for their success at the National Grade Six Assessment and to children in general who have passed their end-of-year examinations and are moving up to a higher grade in school, yet another underage girl has made the news for the wrong reason.
We learned this week that a man, said to be a police recruit, was found in the bedroom of a 13-year-old girl by her father who got up in the wee hours of the morning to make checks. Last week, it was the case of a 14-year-old girl, accused of being promiscuous and sneaking out to have sex with older men, who was battered by her father. A 6-week prison term handed down to the father for his cruelty in handling the situation has been roundly condemned by those who would prefer to condemn the teenager for her licentious behaviour, rather than see the father’s poor parenting or lack of it as the root of the issue.
In January this year we reported on two girls—13 and 14 years old—who gave birth at the Georgetown Public Hospital. The case of the sexual abuse of several young boys, allegedly by a religious teacher they knew and trusted appears to be in limbo. Also in January, we carried a story about a distraught father whose 13-year-old daughter had been abducted from his home in the middle of the night by a known adult man.
In April, we carried the story of four girls—two under the age of 18 and two under the age of 16—who were procured ostensibly as shop clerks, but put to work as prostitutes at a mining area in the interior. One girl, who baulked at what she was being forced to do, managed to escape and exposed the faux shopkeeper and her dastardly motives. The other girls were subsequently “rescued.”
In May, a 12-year-old girl who was raped by her stepfather gave birth to a baby via Caesarean Section at the Georgetown Hospital. The stepfather was charged with rape.
Last month, it was the case of an 11-year-old girl, who was allegedly raped and impregnated by her father. The father subsequently committed suicide.
Last month also, a police constable was charged with raping a 14-year-old girl at Port Kaituma and was placed on $500,000 bail.
These are by no means all of the stories of young children at the mercy of sexual predators; children who trusted adults who were supposed to care for them but instead abused them; children who were not adequately protected by their parents, guardians, communities and the state.
Recently, there has been a tendency by adults to blame children who are preyed on. They are called all sorts of names and accused of all manner of things. A case in point was Minister of Human Services Jennifer Webster’s condemnation of a whole sector of teenage girls whom she judged as lacking morals.
In his 1960’s song, the words of which are still relevant today, Sammy Davis Jnr sang: “And too many children//Encouraged to roam//By too many parents//Who won’t even stay at home… Delinquent teenagers, oh, man// How quick we do condemn//The sins of a nation//And then go and blame it on them…”
It is worth noting here that a paedophile is an adult who preys on children. Paedophilia, which is a crime, is also considered a mental disorder. Sadly though, in Guyana, the crime is often not punished and the mentally-ill adults, with their abnormal sexual interest in children, continue to molest them. Unfortunately, too, even if there were paedophiles who recognized their ill state and wanted help, such help is mostly unattainable; there is less than a handful of medical professionals here who could adequately address their situation. The fact is that Guyana’s mental health sector is bordering on crisis and aside from talking around the problem, not much is being done.
This week, recognizing the issue of child abuse as a region wide one, Caricom’s Council for Human and Social Development (COHSOD) made it the focus of its 23rd meeting which ended yesterday in Georgetown. Addressing the opening of the meeting, Caricom Secretary-General Irwin La Rocque noted that no form of violence against children and youths is justified and called for all to work together to ensure that laws have the necessary teeth to punish those who exploit children and youths. Anti-child abuse activists have been saying this for years. We hope that Caricom as a whole and this government in particular is prepared to do what is necessary to curb this horrific “beast.”
