Yesterday I watched a documentary series called The trials of Gabriel Fernandez, it’s a child abuse trial: an 8 year old boy who died following months of physical and emotional torture at the hands of his mother and stepfather in 2013,USA. The physical trauma that boy suffered I don’t think even an adult would have survived. Those parents were barbaric 😭
Where he stayed with his parents & siblings: He was allocated a cupboard to sleep in day & night-he would be cuffed and gagged inside there not to make noise, he had no freedom to go to the loo, forced to excrete there and made to clean it up 💔
battered with baseball bats, shot with bb guns, punched with fists,bitten, kicked & chocked, Ke gore any kind of pain that could be inflicted all over that small body was💔
broken bones-skull & rib fractures, knocked out teeth,black eye, his body literally was crushed 💔
cigarettes, candle & hot-spoon burns. His skin was discolored by bruises of different timelines. He was forced to eat cat litter, his vomitus and fecal matter 🥺.Pepper sprayed in the face & locked in— anything and everything that could break him was done to him 💔.
And still in the 2 weeks before the final blows that led to his death he wanted to be a good boy for his mom as a present for Mother’s Day.🥺🥺
You will wonder where everyone was right?
In his last months of existence the ones who pushed for him to be rescued – his teacher & a concerned security officer were taken lightly, indirectly silenced (that is not what you are hired to do kind of situation) . The relatives did not think the worst of this child’s living circumstances although they knew the mother’s violent behavior/temper tantrums and despite the child’s request to go and live with his grandmother. Well, the biological father was in prison at the time. The responsible authorities did not go beyond believing his mother’s cover up stories and the stepfather’s ‘meek’ public demeanor.💔
He was 8 years old, some would think, “well, he could talk”.. he did talk, the more he did the more he got tortured, so protective mechanism for him was silence or form a shallow story.💔. He died 💔😥
This might be a story within our borders too. Let me remind us of this:
If you are an adult know that you have earned an extra responsibility to be an advocate for any child. Be a nag to everyone if push comes to shove, you maybe the only one that makes a difference in that child’s life.
If you see a child you don’t know walking around with bruises & abrasions it’s well within your confines to ask what’s wrong and do alert authorities within your community of possible abuse.
If you are a neighbor and hear helpless screams of a child, you see a child that is separated from the rest and they show up with strange marks, limps and wounds everytime please alert the authorities even on anonymous basis. Be the alarm that raises awareness and attention for that child.
Teachers, you spend a lot of time with these children, you can step up anytime and press the panic button for them, it is your duty, don’t shy away from protecting a life. Your student comes with fresh wounds, black eye, lumps & bumps everyday to school, they arrive late everyday with dubious explanations, they increasingly seem neglected, they are withdrawn from others, their school perfomance deteriorate you are allowed to take it up beyond you. Be a nag, it does not matter.
Any proffesional can go beyond their call of duty for a child, you may never know but your efforts may save a life and change it for the better forever.
Parents, it’s your primary role to guard those children and protect them from any kind of abuse, do not subject your child to suffering for the sake of maintaining a relationship, do not condone child abuse for the sake of protecting your family’s image or social standing.
Let’s not sit & hide our suspicions of child abuse because those children will not talk, they are threatened and conditioned to conceal their suffering, some are embarrassed to talk about it, some have no idea they are being abused and have no capabilities to talk but above everything else they are defenseless.
Care for a child. Prevent child abuse. Protect our future generations. Unlike others,Let us be a nation that nurtures a child.
Much love Kelly
13/07/20
Life Ls 