By Lawrence Williams
A 13-year-old victim of persistent sexual abuse has aborted her pregnancy few days after her parents discovered she has been impregnated by a family friend of nearly 50 years old.
Mary (not her real name) said she aborted the pregnancy after drinking some tabs she bought from a drug peddler.
According to the mother of the victim, the suspect, one Mr. Quee, is a very close friend to her husband and family. She said they usually exchange common favours with Mr. Quee and that she normally sends her daughter to take and collect things to and from Mr. Quee’s house. The mother said more often than not, Mary would go to Mr. Quee’s house accompanied by her younger sister and so she could not have suspected anything was going on between them.
Speaking to the victim, she said the whole affair started in March this year when she first went to collect about 60 cups of rice from Mr. Quee.
“He had promised to give my family the rice so they sent me and my younger sister to go and collect the rice,” she said.
Narrating her experience, the innocent, pale-faced Mary said: “When we got to the house, Mr. Quee gave his phone to my younger sister to play game and then took me inside his room, pushed me on the bed, gripped my mouth, removed my clothes and pressed his penis right inside my vagina.”
She added that the experience was very excruciating.
Asked why she did not tell her parents, she said Mr. Quee threatened her not to tell anyone otherwise the blood that oozed out from her vagina would fight against her and would cause her to go mad.
Speaking further, Mary said Mr. Quee slept with her more than two occasions.
“Every time we went to his house, he would give his phone to my younger sister to play game and then lured me into his room and sexually abused me,” she cried.
Speaking how she came to abort the pregnancy, Mary said she stole *Le 10,000* from her mother and bought some tablets from a drug peddler which she drank to terminate the pregnancy. She said she did so secretly because her aunty had broadcasted the news of her being pregnant to the entire community and she was very ashamed of people calling her names and pointing fingers at her.
She explained that after taking the tablets, she began to experience stomach pain and bleeding.
She said: “The pain was very severe. But one morning when I went to the toilet, I felt something like a lizard coming out of my vagina.”
Approaching the police at Akon Police Station (located at the back of American Embassy) where the matter is currently being investigated, they affirmed that in Mr. Quee’s statement, he confirmed that he slept with the victim but doubted whether the pregnancy came from his loins. According to the police, the suspect told them that in the first instance when Mary’s mother confronted him with the issue, he gave the sum of *Le 250,000.00* to Mary’s mother to abort the pregnancy and begged her not to reveal his evil deeds to anyone.
But the mother had earlier stated that she knew nothing about the abortion.
*“When she collapsed at the police station, we immediately rushed her to the hospital. That was the time I knew that my daughter has committed abortion,”* the mother explains.
Though Mary claimed her mother was unaware of the medicines she took to abort the pregnancy, a concern citizen has questioned the veracity of that statement on the grounds that no pregnancy-killer tablet is sold for Le 10,000.00. This citizen is also asking how did Mary know that those tablets would terminate the pregnancy.
Another resident within the area holds the view that both the mother and Mr. Quee are duty-bearers whose responsibilities are to provide care, guidance and mentorship for Mary but instead connived to destroy her future.
Conversing with some youth in the neighbourhood, they told this writer that sexual abuse of minors is very common in their community and that the community elders, stakeholders are very complacent about it. These youth claimed that their community is not safe for women and girls.
They further intimated this press that Mr. Quee is a building contractor who has money. They say he is particularly fond of playing with young girls but can not tell whether Mary is the first to have fallen prey to Quee’s romancing antics.
Mary, on the other hand, is coming from a poor family that can barely afford three balanced diet a day.
During our engagement with Mary’s mother, we came to learn that Mary’s cousin who is also 13 years of age has been abused by one alias Jericho. The abuse took place in the same compound where Mary and her family resides.
The police at Akon also confirmed that Jericho is in their custody. They informed this press that Jericho had earlier raped a minor of which he was being investigated for before this latest complaint was filed against him.
It is not yet clear whether Jericho is a serial rapist but sources within the community have it that Jericho is in the habit of abusing young girls.
The Leicester Road/Tree Planting is a community where both the rich and poor are simply cohabiting. It is home to lawyers, doctors, policemen and other people of higher caliber but the high rate of sexual abuse of girls, as alluded to by the youth, leaves one to ponder over the future of children growing up in the community.