Latest update February 6th, 2025 7:27 AM
Child Protection Agency steps in to rescue six-day-old baby
Thirty-seven-year-old American Dellicia Sherrell Honore-Richardson is demanding that the Child Protection Agency hands over her infant child immediately.
Richardson is an American citizen whose infant child was taken from her by the Child Protection Agency on Tuesday night. The woman told Kaieteur News that she gave birth on October 10, last, at the New Amsterdam Hospital. She later travelled to Georgetown and was staying at a city hotel before the CPA was called in.
Dellicia Sherrell Honore-Richardson
According to a source close to the hospital, the woman entered an internet café with her baby around midday on Tuesday and requested to make a call to the United States of America to request cash from a friend.
Although the woman did not have any money, the attendant at the cafe still made the call. However the person who answered the phone said that they were in no position to send the money requested since he was just a roommate of the woman.
This led the café attendant to become suspicious and the Welfare Department of the Human Services Ministry was contacted, since the woman appeared to be of “unsound” mind.
The woman then took to the streets outside the Georgetown Public Hospital Tuesday night. She was followed by a crowd that included personnel from the Child Care Protection Agency, while clutching her baby.
She was eventually led into the police outpost at the GPHC where her baby was taken from her with minimum force. This caused her to burst into heavy sobbing. She was offered accommodation at the GPHC with her baby but she refused. She also declined to speak to the several persons who were enquiring about her status in Guyana.
It was not until social activist Mark Benschop arrived at the hospital that the woman opened up with a bit of information. Contact was then made with a US embassy official via telephone and Benschop subsequently made arrangements to have the woman spend the night at a city hotel.
Head of the Child Protection Agency, Ann Greene, yesterday maintained that her department had to rescue the infant. According to Greene, the laws of Guyana stipulate that “every child” who is in the country has to be protected.
She told Kaieteur News that her officers had offered the woman and the baby care and treatment but the woman refused. Greene said that the CPA’s focus then shifted to the infant who needed care and treatment.
Greene also disclosed that her agency has been in contact with the US Embassy here in Georgetown to get certain information. She also said that the CPA is currently working with an overseas child protection agency to get the best care for the child. Upon discharge from the hospital the child would remain in the care of the CPA.
The Benschop Foundation has stepped forward saying that it is prepared to financially facilitate the woman going back to the United States, once she is given her child back. Kaieteur News was told that the woman arrived in Guyana on September 26, last.
Records show that prior to coming here, she landed in The Bahamas on January 15, 2013 and an extension of stay was refused on February 4, 2013 without prejudice.
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