For the want of a shoe

This week, I realise I was wrong. Well, not so much wrong as na?ve, a naivety spawned from a comfortable, middle class upbringing that is far removed from the reality many face daily, a reality of such mind numbing constrictiveness that I cannot even imagine far more live it. . This week, I am writing this column after reading the story of the 14-year-old girl — and yes, she is a girl — who gave birth in her neighbour’s outside bathroom — imagine in such a country and in such an age, indoor plumbing is still a luxury people dream of — and then buried the baby alive out of fear.

My theory of sex education at school fails here because this poor (in all meanings of the word) girl has been out of school for some time because she hadn’t any shoes to wear and her mother, according to one newspaper, said she couldn’t help her. And if your own mother is not in a position to help you, then you really are in trouble.

Her 32-year-old brother said it was God’s intervention that led him to find the child half an hour after its birth, where it had been buried under a pile of manure and other detritus.

It was a funny time for God to intervene though. He didn’t see it fit to send somebody with a pair of school sneakers which would ensure the child — and yes, she is a child — could walk to gain an education. And I am sure she would have to walk because this family paying for transportation is almost as inconceivable as a mother who can’t afford to buy school shoes, what with Francis Fashions having 331/3 percent off sale every day of the week and twice on Sundays, proceeding to have 12 children. Perhaps she was only being a good Catholic, abstaining from the sin of birth control, the sin of abortion, the sin of educating her children about sexual responsibilities and caring for their bodies. But then again it is hard to care for one’s body when it inhabits a one room house with two of her sisters, her mother, and no doubt her common-law husband, occupying another shack nearby.

This little girl certainly failed to adhere to the tenet of the church that condemns sex before marriage. But if the rumour in the village of Monkey Town where this occurred (and how like a Dickens novel this reads, even though Charles’s talent never ran this dark) is true, then the 63-year-old "chile father" probably didn’t leave the girl a choice. Perhaps like the 12-year-old girl I had written about in the previous column, everyone turned a blind eye because he was helping the family out.

If this was so, why didn’t he see it fit to give the girl a pair of shoes? But then that would lead to an education and that, as we all know, can only lead to people being able to make informed choices about their own welfare and being able to stand up and say enough is enough. And who would want that? Just ask any Member of Parliament.

One newspaper saw it fit to print the girl’s name, while the name of her abuser — and it was abuse — was withheld. And I know this comes out of some law of the land meant to protect the innocent until proven guilty. So I guess this means the girl is guilty. I will not mention her name here (futile I know, but leave me my foibles) because as far as I can see she is the true victim. She should have the basic right, usually the only right, afforded rape victims in this country of having her name spared.

Who has failed this child? We all have. She has said she delivered her baby alone in the neighbour’s bathroom (My God! My God! My mind buckles under the burden of the pain suffered alone, unwilling to cry out so as not to draw attention to herself) because she was afraid her mother would have been mad with her.

It’s a wonder she has not gone mad herself. Mad at being born into too large a family, too poor a home, too callous a village, a country, a world. What mother does not notice her child is pregnant? What mother leaves her children to live alone? And I won’t even ask where the father is in all this because the answer is what it always is, he wasn’t there.

And the little girl says she’s sorry, she was scared, that she wants her baby and wants to be a mother. And I feel my heart breaking in my chest for the tragedy of this girl’s life. I hope she doesn’t get that child. Better for that child to not have been found in the bush than for that child to take up the baton that’s being passed on to him. Somebody buy that girl a pair of shoes.

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