News Source Guyana Reports : A grieving mother from Grove, East Bank Demerara, is publicly pleading for information after her 15-year-old daughter went missing while under the protective custody of the state.
Marcia King reported that her daughter initially went missing from their home on May 31. After locating the teenager, Ms. King sought assistance from the Grove Police Station, which subsequently handed the girl over to the Child Care and Protection Agency (CCPA).
According to Ms. King, she was only informed on Monday that her daughter had been missing since the previous Saturday. The mother expressed deep frustration, noting that despite the agency having her contact information, she received no timely notification of the disappearance.
Ms. King’s search for her daughter led to a frustrating run-around between various police stations. She reported that initial inquiries at the La Penitence and Ruimveldt stations yielded no records of a missing child. It was only upon visiting the Prashad Nagar station that she learned a report had been filed.
The mother raised serious questions about the agency’s supervision of the child:
Lack of Permission: Officials allegedly claimed the teenager and another child were sent out to “buy something” when they vanished.
Negligence: Ms. King questioned how a child deemed to be in a vulnerable situation could be allowed to roam unsupervised by the very agency tasked with her protection.
Opposition Member of Parliament and Attorney-at-Law Dexter Todd has joined the mother in demanding accountability, stating that the state has fundamentally failed to uphold its duty to secure and protect children in its custody.
“This is more than a welfare issue; this is a missing person [case], and it is a police matter,” Todd remarked. He criticized the lack of urgency, noting that no photograph of the missing teenager has been publicized and that investigators have failed to maintain contact with the family.
Todd further suggested that this may not be an isolated incident, citing reports of several young girls going missing, with potential links to a location on the West Demerara. He condemned what he described as the authorities’ slow and inadequate response to these disappearances.
Repeated attempts by media outlets to obtain a comment from the Child Care and Protection Agency have thus far gone unanswered.
