A SINGLE parent mother of seven has complained that she is being taunted and verbally abused by a group of young men in the neighbourhood following the rape of her 14-year-old daughter.
The woman, of Friendship Squatting Area, East Bank Demerara, told the Guyana Chronicle their lives have been turned upside down since three men, her neighbours, brutally gang raped and sodomised the teen on February 21, at a house in the street where they all live.
The traumatised complainant said she is being taken advantage of because there has been no man in her home after her husband died two years ago following a brief illness.
She said she was left to fend for herself and children, five girls and two boys but after the rape that caused one to be in prison, the other rapists often threaten her, the last time being yesterday, when she returned home and was told that, before the next Court date, they would end her life.
“I am a poor woman who vends and does other jobs to feed my children and I am afraid because they (the men) also said they would poison the barrel from which I use water for drinking,” the woman lamented.
She said, almost every day, the men would send messages or pass her house and insult her and her daughter, something she never expected from her male neighbours, who are persons she knows well and trusted.
The victim of the sexual violation said, on the evening of February 21, she was on the road speaking to a young man whom her mother does not like.
She said she had been admonished repeatedly, by her mother, not to speak to that particular person and, when she saw her parent returning home, she became afraid and ran away.
A short distance from her home, she encountered a male neighbour who offered to accommodate her at his friend’s house in the same street and there is where three other men offered her a meal of macaroni and chunks.
Soon after she had finished eating, one of the men hugged her around the waist and forced her into a bedroom where they took turns at raping and sodomising her, despite her frightened pleas and cries.
The teen said she was too scared to scream for help as each of the men had forced sexual intercourse with her.
She said, after her ordeal, she managed to escape in the wee hours and reported the occurrence to a female villager, at whose home she spent the rest of the morning, before going to a cousin’s.
The teenager said, on February 22, she related what happened to her mother, who took her to Grove Police Station and she was, subsequently, examined by a doctor.
The three suspects were arrested the next day and appeared at Providence Magistrate’s Court where they were put on $250,000 bail each.
Two managed to lodge the sum but a third was remanded to prison until March 30.
Meanwhile, the secondary school student endures sleepless nights and nightmares and the constant threats by the accused rapists are adding to her state of fear.