IN the gallery of the Kaieteur News website, is a picture of a young Amerindian girl 12 years old gone missing for over 11 days now and her family believes that the police stationed at the Diamond Police Station are not making sufficient efforts to locate the child Sonia Joseph – a beaming, neatly attired young lady, from the North West District was kidnapped by the driver of a black car according to schoolchildren of her school.

About a week ago, another young female was featured in the same gallery. At 22, she was admitted to the bar, and around her loved ones stood justifiably proud. These are images and stories which undoubtedly win our tributes and appreciation; young women, and more importantly young individuals intent on improving their lives and that of the society they inhabit.
In the more distant past, another young female was featured, this time not in the gallery, but as a headline: Indianite “Cynthia” Based was 14 when she was murdered in a school corridor by a deranged admirer, 21 year old, Saroyan “Andrew” Mannaru. Cynthia’s life and aspirations were eliminated before she could even have the opportunity to collect an award of academic achievement, or even before she could be flanked by her family following a career leap.
For feminists this would be yet another incident of male cruelty against young Amerindian girls, yet we must see this tragedy as a consequence of certain prevalent psychological and socio- political dysfunctions within our society, sometimes occasioned by stalkers themselves. This is not an attempt to minimise the cruelty of this act or exonerate the child’s kidnapper, but it explains one of the root causes of domestic abuse, spousal deaths and child killings we have sadly experienced.
In this grisly incident is a young man who may have suffered from low self-esteem possibly stemming from betrayal and abandonment trauma in his childhood. His profound rage might have resulted from this psychic injury, and thus, he sought to normalise it, by controlling what Sonia wanted, to make life better because of poverty, to whom she spoke, and ultimately, how her fate would be decided. So overwhelming was this young man’s insane torment and anger that he even attempted to kidnap her in broad daylight. His torment spewed forth from a place of deadly depression and when he failed to exact control outside of himself, he then tortured himself. Like many males like him, he was agonised by low self-esteem and psychic roundedness and finding no way out of his misery, he wrought destruction on an innocent person.
We must certainly condemn this kind of kidnapping of our young school girls of all races and feel the deepest remorse at this young Amerindian schoolgirl and her parents, but we need to see how as a society we collude to spawn these circumstances.  When a little schoolgirl commits suicide, it is discovered that the constant teasing and sexual harassment of her stalker led her to it. It is amazing to see how many of these cases go un-noticed by the police or are being neglected. Men are not supposed to cry when faced with hardships or tragedies, because nothing is more effeminate than a weeping “sissy”. Just listen to mothers telling their sons to “be a man” after raping an innocent young girl or some girlfriend- it is a call to take control both of oneself and the situation rather than to submit to one’s human weakness. In essence, we acculturate males to excise their vulnerabilities, their softer side in favour of a more macho, dominant disposition. Ultimately, when the male represses his more vulnerable side, he is unable to cultivate meaningful relationships, not only with women, but more importantly, himself. He does not know how to feel his feelings, and so when anger confronts him, he will erupt, and as we all know, a depressed male will usually express his anger, whereas a female will typically internalise it.
A toxic person is anyone who has poisoned a young girl’s life; who is not supportive; who is not happy to see your young 12-year-old daughter grow, to see her succeed, and who does not wish her well. In essence, he has sabotaged her efforts to lead a happy and productive life. Child abuse is common in all sorts of troubled families. While severe physical abuse and overt sexual abuse are clearly recognisable as traumatic to infants and children, other forms of child abuse may be more difficult to recognise as being abusive as in this case of the young schoolgirl.
These forms of abuse usually result in deep-seated feelings of intense guilt and shame that are unconsciously carried into adulthood. Poor training, poor equipment, and budgetary constraints severely limited the effectiveness of the Guyana Police Force. Public confidence in cooperation with the police remained low in cases such as these. There are still reports of corruption in these matters causing the perpetrators to go free, especially when young Amerindian girls are sexually abused and raped.