Sister takes custody of chained teenage girl
The 16-year-old girl who was used by her father to sell marijuana was turned over by social workers to her elder sister on Wednesday.
The teenager will stay with her sister, who lives away from their parents.
The turnover was recommended by the Mandaue City Social Welfare Service.
Police arrested the girl’s father, a carpenter, in a buy-bust operation in sitio Sudolon, barangay Magukay, Mandaue City where he was identified as a peddler of marijuana.
The arrest led to the discovery of his daughter, who was being kept chained to her bed in the day, and sent out to hand over marijuana sticks to customers, a clever strategy to avoid criminal liability since the girl was a minor.
Social worker Pureza Tabuac said it would be difficult to keep the girl in a government facility in barangay Tribunal, Mandaue City because most of the 20 teenage wards there were street boys.
The two-story facility is a residence for children in conflict with the law.
Tabuac also said the girl was very friendly with boys and would let them kiss her, prompting them to entrust her instead to a relative.
“Lisud gyud, delikado kaayo’g unsa unyay mahitabo. Mag-una-una gud siya sa mga lalaki, mo-kiss-kiss (It’s not safe. Something might happen to her. She flirts with the boys and let them kiss her),” Tabuac said.
The unusual behaviour, she said, showed the girl’s emotional vulnerability, a result of earlier abuse.
The social worker said the elder sister revealed that the teenager, who is believed to be mentally handicapped, was raped by a man when she was 9 or 10 years old.
She said this was allegedly the reason the father chained her to the bed in the daytime — to prevent her from going out and being taken advantage again by men.
The social worker said she would make sure to visit the girl daily in her sister’s house.
“She should be monitored and we should make sure that she can’t be abused again by anybody,” she said.
But Tabuac emphasized that itstead of protecting her, chaining up the girl at home was still an act of abuse that could only worsen her condition.
The father is facing a charge of selling illegal drugs filed with the Mandaue Prosecutor’s Office.
Police said they would file a separate complaint for child abuse against the father.
