At 34 years old Michelle (not her real name) is a broken woman and she believes that the ‘system’ which should have helped her has failed her miserably.
“Right now I at a point in me life where I could just tek me two children and sit in de middle of the road and cry and tell de media and everybody wah I going through and let this government see and hear about people like me, people who doing dey best but just suffering,” she blurted out before succumbing to heavy sobbing.
I let her cry, listening to her struggling to breathe between the loud sobs.
This hurting sister decided to speak through a mutual acquaintance about her experience of searching for her missing 16-year-old daughter, who was eventually found almost one week after she had left her home for lessons. But like a pipe under pressure she could not contain the years of hurt and instead told me her entire story of pain, frustration and complete hopelessness. The more than two hours on the telephone were difficult for me to listen to; it was undoubtedly twice as hard for her to tell me.
