Charges expected in rape of teen
After mother campaigns for five months
Stabroek News
January 8, 2003
Five months after the brutal rape of a 17-year-old shop attendant, it is expected that the perpetrator, who left her lying in a pool of blood, will soon be charged.
Persons close to the teen told Stabroek News that a women’s organisation has become involved in the matter and that the police have been directed to prosecute the man. This comes after numerous appeals by the teen’s mother.
A police source said yesterday that the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) has advised that the man be charged with rape.
However, the source said, the police are unable to locate the alleged rapist.
“Every time the police go to his house, he is not there”, this newspaper was told.
The teenager was raped on August 7 but ever since, her mother has been expressing frustration that the police seem not to be doing anything.
Reports reaching this newspaper state that the girl was working in a shop, located in a building owned by the perpetrator’s mother, when she was “lured” into the man’s apartment and raped.
The teen’s employer, who was renting the shop at the time, told this newspaper that he had just left to get a snack for the girl, when the attack occurred. When he returned, she was lying in a pool of blood.
Since the incident, the girl said she is trying to pursue her computer studies, although the ordeal has deeply affected her. Today, she said, it is still too difficult for her to run and jump or even ride a bicycle.
“I feel some pain, but otherwise I am okay...It has affected my life because I can’t do normal things...all I can do is sit and work on the computer,” she said during a brief telephone interview yesterday.
And she said it would be years before she could ever consider having a companion in her life. “I am not ready for that as yet.” While she was in hospital, several relatives of the alleged perpetrator reportedly approached and asked the teen to marry him so as to “settle” the matter.
Both the girl and her mother refused any arrangement.
The girl’s mother had earlier told this newspaper that the alleged rapist was seen passing through her street on several occasions with his “big car and loud music.”
Those supporting the girl are adamant that the matter should not be “swept under the carpet”. A pamphlet circulated last month, titled `A Mother’s Cry For Justice’, stated: “Four months have passed and it seems as this matter will be swept under the carpet. Nothing has been heard from either the DPP (Director of Public Prosecutions) or the police. My daughter has been counseled -`Go on with your life’. Certainly, she has to, but she goes on living everyday in fear. In fear of a system that offers her no justice, no protection.”
