Thursday 28th June, 2007
The alleged rape is reported to have taken place sometime between April and October 2006. Last week, doctors delivered the baby by Caesarean section because of the teenage mother’s age, health and the size of the baby.
A 13-YEAR-OLD boy was among four students who appeared in the Princes Town Magistrates Court yesterday charged with raping a 13-year-old girl.
The girl gave birth to a baby at the San Fernando General Hospital last week.
The boys, aged 13 to 16, dressed casually and accompanied by their parents, looked saddened as they stood before Senior Magistrate Indrani Cedeno.
The accused students were represented by attorneys Richard Valere and Petronella Basdeo, while Sgt Jankinanan prosecuted on behalf of the state.
Cedeno, who said she was setting an example for others to follow, set bail for the teens at $3,000 each.
The mother of the 13-year-old, however, took her son’s bail, with his father as security.
The matter has been adjourned to July 6.
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Prosecuting this case swiftly, publicly, and justly should send a strong message to young men in TnT and the world. Only one could have impregnated her. For this one, he should be made to get a job, regardless of age, and provide for this child, while trying to continue his education. But this incident is a wake-up call to parents, if your daughter has been involved in unwanted or illicit sex, would you want her child to be the burden of your middle years? Educate our girls to refrain from sexual activity until old enough to manage it responsibily, and if they must get involved in such things, they need to be protected from the onsequences. An opportunity to get pregnanat is an opportunity to get AIDS. Virus and sperm travel the same path.
The key point on this matter is sex with a minor whether it is consensual or not is rape. We tend to assume that rape has to always be associated with males forcefully perpetuating sex upon a female. But the message must be sent not only to adult males but adult females who have consensual sex with our minors (same sex as well). Additionally, we must participate in mentoring all children not just those that we rear at home but all children. Trinidadian and Tobagonian adult must spend some quality time with our children, engaging in “TWO-WAY communication” to resolve problems and develop solutions. Our children are hurting and they need to be heard. We, adults, must start listening to them and working with them to build a better world in Trinidad and Tobago instead of always blaming them for the ills of that befall them. They did not ask to be here.
Regardless of the consent factors, these young men are clearly interacting with the world and their immediate environment with limitless ethical and moral threshhold. Parental guidance or lack thereof has to be the main causative ingredient in this situation.
These are are young and mid teens. At this stage of a child’s development, the potential reaction of parents and care givers to certain behaviours are operating deterrents to said behaviour. When that does not obtain, usually, it means that either the child is out of control or the parenting is out of control. Or maybe both.