By Svetlana Marshall

A 31-year-old Essequibo Coast woman who had been imprisoned by her mother for more than a year and was forced to live under inhumane conditions was rescued yesterday upon the intervention of Prime Minister Moses Nagamootoo and Minister of State, Joseph Harmon.The victim of this bizarre detention had been padlocked in one of the bedrooms of her mother’s Richmond Housing Scheme home, and was fed through a hole. She was found lying half-naked on a

Monica Edwards breaking the tragic story to the press

wooden bed frame in a room filled with human faeces, urine, worms and garbage when the rescue team arrived. She was removed from her place of confinement and taken to a medical institution.

Residents who witnessed the operation rejoiced, saying: “This is indeed the day that the Lord has made!” The police have since launched an investigation into the matter.

This captive’s story, which was reportedly told to regional welfare officials on countless occasions, was brought to light when a determined friend of the family made her way to Perth on the Essequibo Coast, where the Prime Minister, Minister of State Joseph Harmon and Minister of Citizenship Winston Felix were conducting another round of ‘Meet the Public’ engagements.

Monica Edwards, who had known the young woman since she was a child, told the Prime Minister of the tragic story in her quest to get help for the woman, now considered to be mentally ill.

Upon hearing of her plight, the Prime Minister instructed senior ranks at the Anna Regina Police Station to conduct a rescue operation with the assistance of a medical team. Upon seeing the

Locked away: The room in which the 31-year-old was locked away for more than a year. The photo also shows the hole through which she was fed

police, the ambulance and the press, the mother of the 31-year-old burst into tears.

She said her daughter, who had celebrated her birthday just two days ago, had developed a brain disorder approximately seven years ago. During the initial stages of her mental illness, medical attention was sought, but to no avail, the mother said.
RAPED
However, approximately one year ago, the mother said, she decided to lock her daughter away because she and her daughter had been constantly raped by a man in the neighbourhood.

“He raped me, and when he done he go to my daughter and come back to me and raped me,” she recalled.
According to the woman, her daughter was raped more than ten times by this man, who was reportedly apprehended by the police but subsequently released.

“I reported it to the Anna Regina Police, but they just locking he up for a couple of days and them loosing him,” she said.

Facing threats to her life, and confronting the man’s persistence in perpetrating the rapes, the woman said, she then locked her daughter in the room, and would often ‘sleep out’. “Tell you the truth, I fearful for my life, and I don’t sleep home; but when I come home, I would reach her place break,” this mother disclosed.

The woman used to feed her daughter through a hole, but the room was cleaned only “now and then.”
The mother said that due to the constant breakage, she and her eldest son, Jagdeo Bishop, had reasons to put further security measures in place.

Asked whether she was happy that her daughter was finally getting help, the teary-eyed woman responded in the positive.

The room in which the former nurse was made to exist

But the woman’s story contrasted totally from what Edwards had told the Prime Minister, and subsequently the press. According to Edwards, who had the support of some of the neighbours living in Richmond Housing Scheme, the 31-year-old, who had secured 13 grade ones at CXC and was a nurse by profession at the Georgetown Public Hospital, became the subject of torment after having a relationship with a Christian Afro-Guyanese man.

“She is mixed and she was in love with a black man, and the mother didn’t want that, so she decided to lock her away,” she told reporters in the compound of the Anna Regina Police Station minutes before the rescue operation.

Edwards maintained that the former nurse had been locked away against her will. “Yes! She was locked against her will, because many times she would try to break open… That girl got 13 subjects, grade ones, at the school, and she masters Spanish. She was a cashier,” Edwards said, noting that she just needs to see the alleged rape victim get the help she deserves.

But the 31-year-old woman’s eldest brother, Jagdeo Bishop, refuted the claims made by Edwards, saying that it had nothing to do with a relationship she had shared.

“This thing started when she started working at public hospital. She was following a boy over there, and she start following friends and all sort of stupidness she start doing!”

Jagdeo Bishop pointing to an area in the house where zinc sheets were placed to prevent invaders

He is of the view that his sister was not locked in against her will, and he contended that the action was necessary. “We had to lock her up. When we loose her out in the yard, me mother never had access to the yard when she start behaving in a ravenous manner. She a beat meh mother and all sort of thing, and I use to sleep deh one- one time, and she use to beat me too. That is why we had to build a room and put her inside so we can get access to the house and the yard,” he declared.

Admitting that his sister was indeed forced to live in a very unhealthy condition, Bishop told reporters that from time to time he would clean her room.

Hours after the rescue operation, Prime Minister Nagamootoo told reporters that he was happy that the woman who had been held captive was liberated. “When this situation was brought to me, I couldn’t allow it to persist for one more hour…It was worse than a scene of kidnapping, it was worse than a scene of putting under the ground in a situation of incarceration. It was inhumane, it was cruel,” he said.