Oluatoyin Alleyne

As she stood on the public byway and shared condoms to passersby, Juanita Burrowes was in earshot of a ‘cuss out’ between two neighbours and shockingly heard one accuse the other of allowing her partner to sexually abuse her young son.

“Only the pillow can tell how many tears I shed. It has not been easy you know but I would not give up and even though they pay late and the money is small I bless God for it.

“What you buying girlie? A gat celery, sweet peppa, bora all wah you want, a gat hay today.

It was a chance temporary employment opportunity that led to Anije Lambert taking the bull by the horns and using her small savings to start a company that now provides employment for many young people.

“The pain never goes away,” she said passionately, gesticulating as she spoke.

She has received death threats, tracked gang violence, been in the trenches covering wars, travelled extensively, at times being forced to leave her young sons behind to get the story and she has lived the busy life for over 30 years.

Faced with many challenges because of their disability a newlywed couple believe that their union can be an inspiration to many who forced to operate in a world that is often cruel to persons who are disabled.

She was involuntarily returned to Guyana more than 14 years ago, but the 50-year-old mother of four still cannot find a steady job and finds it “frustrating just to survive.”

“I see her come out the office in a flood of tears and is like me heart just go out to her and I had to stop she and ask she wah happen.

Beverly Pile still remembers the day as if it were yesterday.

“Yes so…,” and then she was silent for a few seconds, or longer.

Over five years after she secured a court order, which deemed a move by the government to have her blacklisted unlawful, a young professional is forced to produce the original document as well as a photocopy every time she is about to leave the country; today she is angry that those who failed to correct the unconstitutional act are now crying foul.

It has been almost a year since that brutal attack that took her daughter’s life and left her with a lasting injury on her left hand, and Bibi Shameela’s constant wish is that she could turn back time and offer more protection to her daughter who had fled an abusive husband.

She is in her thirties, but still timid around her parents and older relatives.

Seventeen years ago Leonie Edwards was a woman with many children, who was controlled by her husband and who could not read.

“Mother’s Day is always a struggle for me because people believe I am not a mother.

At 21 Rebekah Saleem was newly married and pregnant, and just when she thought life couldn’t get any better she was told she was carrying twin girls.

“I can’t sit down. I just have to get up, I have to get up and get.

She was just 16 and he was 22 when he visited her home and ‘asked home’ for her (a term used in Guyana to describe when a man requests a woman’s hand in marriage through her parents).

The first column on January 29, featured the experience of a battered woman’s struggle in dealing with a system that is not friendly towards women like her and dealing with her husband whose only intent is for her to return to their matrimonial home.