The Girl Died

She was 13years old and the 4th child of a family of six children.  Her father recently won a housing lottery ticket that rewarded them with one of the new government schemes for low-in-come earners in a fairly new neighbourhood and she along with her other siblings attended a local school in  the community. A dreamcome through for them!

Eniye's dad worked with the local government authority as a clerk while her mother was a petty trader; they had six children with the oldest being 16 years.  They could hardly take care of the children with what the father made let alone send all six children to school but Eniye was determined not to be like her illetrate mother or her elder sister who was being prepared for marriage to a much older man as a second wife after Junior Secondary School. She, unlike her elder sister refused to be married out early but instead chose the option presented by her father which was to join her mum in trading after school everyday in order to remain at home and in school. 


I recall that sad evening when she did not return home from hawking bread!  Everyone in the neighbourhood came out in search of  Eniye till the early hours of a new dawn when we were all woken up by that terrible cry that still rings in my head everytime I remember Eniye. It was the cry of a mother in agony; the agony of the death of a child! Eniye's body had been found. 

You see, she had dreams just like any young child growing up.. but alas......

Registration had commenced for the Junior Secondary School Examinations and her school fees had not been paid. She knew she would not be allowed to sit for the exams without paying her fees and so she had gone out to hawk bread in the near-by construction site that afternoon to help raise money for her fees. Lured by the attackers to an uncompleted building, she was raped and strangled and her body left in her own pool of blood.

How many 'Eniyes' are out there today having to fend for themselves more or less at a very tender age for no fault of theirs? How many people today are out there exploiting the 'Eniyes' of this world? How long is our society going to keep looking the other way while more 'Eniyes' die?  When are we going to rise up and save the 'Eniyes' of this world? 

I saw Eniye's mum yesterday as I went visiting in an old neighbourhood and oh, how the memories just kept pouring into my head! Eniye loved to read books; she loved to act and I recall her favourite story book: Cinderella and how she used to long for the day that her prince would come looking for her with the golden slippers in his hand! But alas.... the girl died.