– daughter raped, incapacitated from suicide attempt

THE mother of young ‘Ariel’ (not her real name), a former high school student, is appealing to the public for help to restore her daughter to some level of normalcy.

The teen is suffering from Ischemic Hypoxic Encephalopathy, a medical condition of the brain that has affected her cognitive and motor skills, caused by the means through which she attempted suicide some years ago.

The story of Ariel is a sad narration. At an impressionable age of just 14, she was coerced into an illicit sexual relationship with a man 14 years her senior while still a high school student. She managed to end the relationship but, soon after, she found herself in another relationship not far different from the first.

The young girl, after realising for the second time that she was being used and abused, lost hope in life and her failed attempt at suicide has resulted in her current health condition.

Her mother–a single parent–had to quit her job to be by her side and is having a tough time as she too has medical conditions of her own to battle.

Shanta (not her real name) is afraid that should something happen to her, no one would want to care for her daughter. However, the good news is that through treatment, young Ariel can recover from her current state.

Shanta is appealing to the public for help to get her daughter to recover from her current condition and bring her abusers to justice.

Relating what happened, an emotional Shanta told Guyana Chronicle that sometime in 2013, while attending secondary school, her daughter told her that she met a guy who wanted to get married to her.

OBJECTION
Shanta strongly objected to such a union since her daughter was still in school, and was still very young. She also felt that the promise of marriage was nothing but a lure.

According to Shanta, the man who was 28 at the time, told Ariel he was 22 years old and showered her with ‘’sweet words’’. He eventually forced himself on her in a lonely spot when the relationship was just a few weeks old and then promised to marry her.

Ariel, being young and naïve, believed the man wholeheartedly. She would leave for school early in the morning, but instead of going to school, she goes to the man’s house without her mother’s knowledge.

Eventually, word of the relationship got around when Tom (not his real name) and Ariel got into a fight. Probation officers were called in and Tom was detained for four days. The matter was then sent to court.

In a bid to tarnish the girl’s reputation and to show that she was the one who approached him, Tom hatched a plan with his best friend ‘John’ to approach Ariel under the guise of marrying her. The two then started a relationship.

According to Shanta, John too came home and asked to marry Ariel but gave a different name and said he was the son of a prominent Upper Corentyne businessman.

“I explained to him that she is still young and underage but he said he will wait until she becomes 16 and finish school to get married. So I asked about his parents and stuff and he gave me the details, which I later found out were all lies” said the mother.

Shanta said she became suspicious when she kept asking to meet
John’s family and he kept making excuses. She decided to visit the business place and asked for him and, to her surprise, she found out that John was a driver/salesman and was in a long-term relationship with someone else.

Shanta approached the mother of John’s ‘long-term’ girlfriend and was told that the relationship is several years old and that the couple was planning to get married soon. She eventually took Ariel to hear first-hand what was conveyed to her but the heart-break proved to be too much for the teen.

EVIL ADVICE
Ariel got into contact with Tom again and Shanta overheard him telling Ariel over the phone to hurt herself.

“After the story with John, she and Tom start talking again over the phone and I took away her phone. One Friday afternoon when I come home I heard she was on the phone, so I sneaked up and I heard him telling her to take some of my sleeping tablets and drink it, Shanta related. ‘If you do this you mother won’t stop us from being together’,’’ Shanta quoted Tom as saying.

Angry, Shanta confronted Ariel about the instruction from Tom, but the teen denied she was given any instruction to injure herself.

An argument broke out between the two and Ariel decided to go to her brother to spend the day and return to go to church on Sunday.

While in church, Ariel started to experience epileptic-like symptoms and soon after she collapsed and was taken to hospital.

The teen spent a week in hospital before her condition stabilised a bit and was eventually transferred to a private facility where her condition was diagnosed as Ischemic Hypoxic encephalopathy.

She spent a few days in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) and was eventually taken into the normal wards, since her family’s finance dried up.
Treatment for Ariel’s condition is reportedly not available in Guyana. She was discharged from hospital in a comatose state while her mother was given advice on how to care for Ariel at home.

“I brought her back home but the medication she was taking was not allowing her to sleep. She was sleepless for three weeks. I eventually borrowed some money and went back to Georgetown and meet the doctors who explained that the medication had some side effects and gave me something to help her get some rest. She had to be fed through a tube and had a catheter in but because I took her to the private hospital, the public hospital don’t want remove it. So I had to pull it out myself.”

Shanta related amid tears that she had to quit her job to care for her daughter day and night and eventually managed to get her to walk and perform some simple tasks but she was unable to go to the bathroom on her own.

In a bid to make ends meet, Shanta turned to sewing. But, to make matters worse, the house they were staying at was renovated by the owners to be sold and they had to move.  Ariel’s twin brother moved in with his older brother and both have abandoned the mother, since they believed that she loved Ariel more than them.

Shanta is appealing to the public for assistance so that her daughter, soon to be 20, can receive the medical attention she needs to recover and hopefully return to a somewhat normal life.

“If there is anyone out there who can help us, please do. I don’t want anything; I will work for the rest of my life to repay you if I have to, but please, I am seeking medical intervention for my daughter. She is a young, beautiful, kind-hearted soul that needs a lot of help and I cannot do it alone. Please help us if you can.” Persons desirous of assisting Shanta can contact her on telephone number 592-619-0715.