When mothers sacrifice their young daughters for a few cents

May 07, 2017 Features / Columnists, My Column

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There is a movie entitled ‘The hand that rocks the cradle’. It reveals the powerful influence of the mother. As is the case in the animal world, mothers would risk their lives to protect their offspring. All would go to great lengths.
Who among us who have reared dogs would not have recalled being viewed with suspicion by a mother that has just given birth to a litter? When we try to move the litter the mother would be there at her protective best. It is not that the mother does not know us, but her protective instinct is often far greater than her appreciation of us, the owner.
Many a little child in the household has been bitten, not seriously, by the mother because the child would not have been careful enough in handling one of the litter.
Human beings may be a bit more tolerant of outside interference, but the female is no less protective of her children. Yet there are mothers who forsake their basic instinct for personal reasons. This has led to many children being abused.
There was the case of Neesa Gopaul who died horribly at the hands of her mother’s lover. The reports are that the mother watched as her lover bashed in her daughter’s head and dumped the body in a creek along the Soesdyke/Linden Highway.
I could not do nothing but commend the judge for the sentence he handed down. Of course there were those who felt that the sentence was harsh, but those of us who love our children wished the sentence could have been harsher. The mother and her lover should never walk the streets of Guyana again.
There are other instances of mothers supporting their partners who attack their children. Many young girls can attest to this. Some have made bold to report such assaults, sometimes to relatives outside the home. Some have gone to their mothers and got the support. But this is not always the case. More often than not the child is blamed for what happened.
There are two incidents that I would mention here. One involved a media colleague. A child reported an abuse to a relative who in turn took the issue to the police. In the end the abuser was sent to jail for a long time, much to the shock of many of us in the media fraternity.
I recall, during the trial, that some people actually said to me that the child had trumped up the allegation because the man was harsh in the face of this child’s desire to “walk on the wild side.” Some believed this story.
When the sentence was handed down I remember asking the judge about the things that helped inform his decision. He said that one of the things that stood out was the refusal of the wife to testify. She was a Seventh Day Adventist and the judge knew that her fear of the Man above was such that she would not enter the witness box and testify to what she knew was a lie. The judge said that the woman was not prepared to hold a Bible and do that.
More recently, there was a case of a man molesting his eight-year-old stepdaughter. The media reported, quite correctly, a family member. For starters, I cannot see any sexual attraction for an eight-year-old.
The matter came up in the high court about seven years later and the man was sent to jail for a relatively long time. If that were the end of the matter I would have been unconcerned at this time, but the fallout is horrendous.
I got a phone call informing me that the child’s mother reportedly told her that she should have died. I asked the caller for a reason for the mother reacting in that way and learnt that the man in jail is the mother’s man.
Here is a case of the mother blaming the victim because she sees her creature comforts languishing in jail, leaving her to fend for herself. I do not even want to contemplate the state of mind of this child who I understand is preparing to write her CSEC.
I have three daughters, two of whom are mothers. One has a daughter and the other a son. I know for sure that one of my daughters would have been in jail for murder had anyone attempted to molest her child. They grew up in a home where no thought of molestation existed. We are a people who believe that children are to be protected.
For this mother to blame her baby is sickening, and I propose to make an issue of this. We are not going to let the mother get away with this because that is not the way of a mother.
Indeed, I have known cases where mothers accepted pay to allow the culprit to go free even as the child suffered. In cases where the matter took too long to reach the court the victim refused to testify because the episode was too traumatic to recall and the molester was allowed to walk to molest again.
In this recent case, the prisons exacted a manner of revenge for the child. They beat the crap out of this man who was said to be a pastor. When the news reached me I celebrated. Even prisoners have a code of conduct. They do not suffer rapists, especially child rapists.
Those in the Camp Street jail had dealt condignly with a man who killed his children. There was a community in South Sophia that killed a man. This man had molested a little girl. Somehow he was released on bail and he proceeded to do the same thing to the very girl. He is not alive to face the courts.
We all know that children should be protected and some of us would go to extremes to do so.

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