Mother of five-year-old rape victim speaks out

Feb 19, 2012 News

….says she was not negligent

The mother of the five-year-old girl who was brutally raped on December 22, last year, under the Canje River Bridge has broken her silence. She was sharing her feelings with hundreds gathered at a Prayer vigil for abuse victims at Port Mourant, Corentyne, this past week.
Colleen (last name given), of Betsy Ground, East Canje “was glad that she was given the opportunity to speak in public so that people could know what was really happening”.
She noted that she had been waiting for a telephone call from her husband who resides in Trinidad and that “the call had been delayed”. She was two doors away from her home while her daughter was left in the care of her mother-in-law who resides in another home aback of her yard.
“So I kept waiting and my child was by my mother-in-law.”
She noted that she went back home at least twice and made “checks on her child”. During one of the checks she discovered that her daughter was missing on the second time she checked. “I did not know who took her or if she really sleep walk but my assumption was that she sleep and walk and I went over to my brother-in-law and told him that my daughter was missing.
“We went back and checked and she was not there, so I decided to go to my mother because if somebody sleep walked, I assumed that they have to go where they knew, but she was not there either,” she noted.
They then raised an alarm and a search party was formed. “I do not know who really raped my daughter but I assumed that it was somebody that I knew and I called his name– his name was given to the police and to date, justice has not been served. Investigations are still ongoing”.
The mother revealed that her daughter has been in the hospital “for nearly three weeks and I don’t know what will be her future. For now, she is okay and everything is going quite fine. She has been damaged internally and for me, there are all kinds of people out there who do not know me, who have never seen me but people have different conclusions.
“I just want them to know out there– who have been criticizing me– that I have been a good mother and I know to myself that I have treated my children well and I have been there for them during the good times and the bad times when the father was not there. Nobody has a right to criticize me.
“Yes, everybody has their opinion, but I am the mother and I am going through a bad time right now and my daughter is feeling it,” she stated.
She appealed to the police to “do their work”.
The woman revealed too that the suspect she named was released after 72 hours…but my name was in the papers that I should be charged with negligence of the children. I am a mother and I live by myself with my children when my husband is not there.
“Nobody cannot come and do my shopping or go to church with me…I take my children to church and I go and do my shopping by myself because I live by myself and when I leave, I leave a neighbour to look over them or my mother or my aunt,” she stated.
She is convinced that she “has been there for them and I should have been given credit…if I could have seen into my future, I could have tried to prevent my child from being raped”.
After the gruesome act, the child was admitted to the Intensive Care Unit of the New Amsterdam Hospital in a critical condition. She was abducted out of her bed wrapped in a sheet and taken into the bushes on the bank of the Canje River and brutally raped on Friday, December 22.
The child who is the second of three children was left sleeping at home with her two-year-old brother.
According to investigators the girl and her mother-in-law live next door to each other, not too far from the river dam. The Incident occurred some time after 23:00 hrs.
It is understood that while the mother was over at her mother-in-law the perpetrator entered the house wrapped the sleeping girl in a blanket taken from her sleeping brother and carried her into the bushes on the River dam area, where he committed the dastardly act.
To date, no arrests have been made nor have the police or Child Welfare Services managed to find and bring the perpetrator to justice. Kaieteur News was informed that the child has not attended school since returning home from the hospital and displays outward signs of emotional scarring. She is very scared and shy of men and people in general. She usually runs and hides when they approach her.

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Mother of five-year-old rape victim speaks out

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