A TWENTY-EIGHT-YEAR-OLD mother of two children, aged four and two years, said she has lost faith in the Court system and the Guyana Police Force (GPF), as they have both failed in addressing her discomforting situation. Cynthia Hilliman came to the office of the Guyana Chronicle to express her disappointment that the Police at Rosignol, West Bank Berbice, did not apprehend her abusive spouse since last October.
She said a magistrate, sitting in chambers, had ordered the man to pay child support for his two children, an obligation that he has since honoured in the breach, after making only two payments.
Hilliman is of the view that the case should have been heard in open Court and the man made to pay through there, as against the post office.
According to her, the 31-year-old man, who once served in the Guyana Defence Force (GDF), is known to the Rosignol Police, which they admitted when she went there to lodge a complaint in October.

FOR ABSCONDING
She said that, instead of the Police acting on her domestic abuse report, they picked up the father of her children for absconding from the Army, where he was dealt with and compelled to turn in his uniform.
She claimed that her abuse started after she had the man served with a summons for the children’s support. He showed up at her grandmother’s Rosignol home and abused her.
She said, on another occasion, he arrived there with a cutlass in hand, searching for her and a report was made to the police but no action was taken.
Hilliman said she has been travelling between Georgetown and Rosignol, trying to have the police address the domestic violence report. She said, although suffering the harm at Rosignol, she was made to travel to Georgetown for a medical certificate which she took back to Rosignol.
She was then told to visit the court in Georgetown and when she did, the clerk there informed her that the matter cannot be handled in Georgetown, since the relevant information was not written on the case jacket.
Hilliman was next asked to take the matter up with Providence Police, who will file it for the Court in that district, because she is now living at Grove, also on East Bank Demerara.
The woman said, since January this year, her children’s father has not been paying any maintenance for his children and she has to depend on her parents for assistance.

NOT OFFERED
Asked why she is not working, Hilliman said she does not have the qualification for the jobs she wants and is not offered those she seeks.
She said she has been to the Police Office for Professional Responsibility in relation to the lack of action against the children’s father but that did not prove worthwhile.
She said that she has been granted  restraining as well as protection orders and those had to be served to the man through the GDF last October.
Efforts to contact the former soldier, Pito Jason Farley, of Lot 50 Edward Street, Rosignol, proved futile yesterday as his land line telephone went unanswered.
Hilliman’s lament comes 12 days after the Ministry of Human Services and Social Security launched a National Conversation on Domestic Violence and one day before the first conversation, slated for this afternoon in the community of Zeelugt, East Bank Essequibo, takes place.
The countrywide dialogue is being conducted under the theme ‘It’s our problem: Let’s Solve It’.