More slackness under the PNC. They said they would stomp out human trafficking but the beat goes on unabated.
Teen girls kidnapped, trafficked in Berbice River
-abused, starved and sexually assaulted at camp
Two teenage girls who were reportedly kidnapped by a female New Amsterdam market vendor in the vicinity of the New Amsterdam Market, have finally engaged the attention of the Ministry of Social Protection after five months.
The girls, age 12 and 13 were taken to a “ganja farm” up the Berbice River by a woman and her two adult sons.
One of the teens who was rescued by police in ‘B’ Division a month after she went missing, relayed the harrowing details of torture and ill-treatment that she and her 12-year-old friend endured at the hands of the two brothers and their mother.
She disclosed that on June 16, 2017 she accompanied her father, a vendor, to the New Amsterdam Market to uplift some vegetables.
“I go with me father to the market and it was raining so he told me stand up and he go in the market and this lady come up to me and ask me if I get the perfume and vaseline fuh my mother so I tell she my mother don’t collect ting from anybody only clothes.
“Then she tell me go with her to Stanleytown to collect money for my father and I go”, the teenager said.
She recounted that the car took her and the woman to a lonely spot at Kordbradt Village, East Bank Berbice and stopped. “It had a motorbike waiting with a boy on it and he had a gun.
“She start to slap me up and tell me jump on pon the bike and I go because I was frighten.” The teenager said that herself, the woman and her son travelled further up the East Bank to the Mara Foreshore when she saw her friend lying on the ground bound by the hands and feet.
She had on a short dress. Dem carry the two ah we in the boat to a camp and the lady other son meet we and dem start beat we fuh come out the boat because both ah dem had gun. Me school friend was crying”.
She stated that they were kept at the camp by the brothers and were sexually abused, beaten and even starved while the mother of the boys visited on Sunday’s to ensure that her sons were doing well.
Attempts were made to escape she said but were unsuccessful. “We use to try to get away with the boat dem does got deh when dem sleeping but the other girl couldn’t paddle.
“Dem ain’t use to feed we till afternoon. When dem do give we food is tennis roll till in the afternoon, no breakfast and lunch”.
The tortured 13-year-old told this publication that it was weeks after that police rescued her but failed to rescue her friend. “Dem come and rescue me but dem ain’t get she because the boy grab she and run and go in the bush”.
Meanwhile, mother of the teenage girl still in captivity by her alleged kidnappers relayed that her daughter left to make a purchase at a nearby shop in her area on June 16, 2017, the said day the other teen was nabbed.
“She seh she goin and buy icicle at the shop so I tell she go by her grandmother when she finish”, the mother said.
She said that it was not until the teen’s grandmother contacted her later that evening telling her to send the teen home, that she realised her daughter was missing.
According to her, with the help of friends, family and neighbours, flyers and posters were printed and circulated across Berbice with her daughter’s picture in the hope of someone with information comes forward about her whereabouts.
She stated that she reported the matter to the police. It was during one of their searches that someone told her that another teen who is friends with her daughter went missing the said day.
She was given directions to the teens’ home. By that time, the teen was already rescued and told her where her daughter was being kept. The woman told this publication that they were back and forth with the police and were not seeing any progress in locating her daughter. Desperate for her daughter’s safe return, she is pleading with the relevant authorities to intervene.
Persons expressed their concern that even after five months brandishing the teen’s face across Berbice, the matter had not engaged the Ministry or social workers within the region.