How many more Aleenas and Tianas must we lose?

Dear Editor,

The recent death of 14 year old Aleena Preetam of Good Hope, Essequibo, should trouble the conscience of every Guyanese. According to multiple reports, the teen—who had given birth just one month earlier—was found unresponsive on Mashramani morning and later pronounced dead.^[1] A post mortem examination attributed her death to heart failure and anaemia, and police investigations are ongoing.^[1] But beyond the medical findings lies a deeper national failure—one that we seem determined to ignore until another child dies.

Aleena was a minor. She was pregnant. She dropped out of school. She gave birth at 14. And she died one month later. Each of these facts represents a point at which the system should have intervened. Instead, she slipped through every crack—education, child protection, health, community oversight—until the only thing left to report was her death. The question here, Dear Editor, is this: Who, by law, was responsible for reporting that a child was herself with child? And if no such legal duty exists, how has Guyana allowed such a glaring gap to remain unaddressed?

We cannot pretend this is an isolated tragedy when, in the same week, another child mother—a 15 year old from Berbice, Tiana Chapman—was reportedly stabbed 25 times by the father of her child and left fighting for her life in the ICU.^[2] Two minors. Two mothers. Two children raising children. Two families shattered. And one country forced to confront the uncomfortable truth that our systems are not merely failing our children, they seem not to exist at all.

These cases reflect a disturbing and recurring pattern across multiple layers of our social and protective systems, where vulnerable children are left unprotected, pregnancies among minors are treated as unfortunate “situations” rather than criminal offences, and the systems designed to safeguard children are chronically under resourced, under coordinated, or simply absent.

The circumstances surrounding Aleena’s pregnancy demand urgent scrutiny from the relevant authorities and must not be swept under the rug or forgotten in a week. Too often in our country, investigations involving minors drag on without resolution or end abruptly without meaningful outcomes. Whether this is due to systemic weakness, institutional inertia, or a lack of prioritization, the result is the same: our children suffer, and the cycle continues.

Editor, under Guyana’s law, a 14 year old cannot legally consent to sexual activity.^[3] That means her pregnancy was not a “teenage relationship”—it was statutory rape. Yet year after year, pregnant minors appear in our hospitals, our schools, and our communities, and somehow the adults responsible for protecting them fail to ask the most basic question: Who is the perpetrator, the rapist, and why is he not being held accountable?

Her death also exposes the fragility of maternal health care for adolescents. Heart failure and anaemia are not random occurrences; they are conditions that can worsen during pregnancy, especially when a child is carrying a child. They are also conditions that can be detected, monitored, and treated with proper prenatal and postnatal care. That raises uncomfortable questions about access, follow up, and whether her health needs were ever adequately addressed. Is the health care system in Guyana functioning at the level it should, given the billions of dollars invested in this sector each year?

And then there is the silence—the cultural silence, the institutional silence, the silence that allows abuse to flourish behind closed doors. Reports indicate that a relative was taken into custody as part of the investigation.^[4] Whether charges follow or not, the fact that this is even a possibility underscores how urgently we need stronger child protection mechanisms and community vigilance.

Meanwhile, the Berbice case involving Tiana Chapman highlights another dimension of the crisis: gender based violence against minors, often by adult perpetrators who should never have had access to them in the first place. A 15 year old mother being stabbed repeatedly by the father of her child is not just a domestic dispute, it is a catastrophic failure of every protective barrier that should have stood between her and harm.

At this point Editor, I have several questions and I am hoping that someone in authority would be kind enough to answer them:

• Are hospitals in Guyana legally required to report when a minor is pregnant or gives birth?

• If the law does not mandate reporting, why has this gap remained unaddressed for so many years?

• And if such a law does exist, why was Aleena’s or Tiana’s case not reported by the hospital at the time of their pregnancy or delivery?

• Under the Sexual Offences Act, Aleena’s pregnancy is evidence of a criminal offence.^[5] Will a DNA test be conducted to determine the identity of the perpetrator, and will that individual be held fully accountable under the law?

• What exactly is the scope of the current investigation, and will the findings be made public?

• What safeguarding steps have been taken for the baby she left behind?

Editor, Aleena’s and Tiana’s stories must not fade from the headlines as just more tragedies. They should force us to confront the uncomfortable truth that too many of our children are living—and dying—in circumstances that the law, the health system, and society should prevent.

If we cannot protect a 14 year old girl from pregnancy, from preventable medical complications, and ultimately from death—and if we cannot protect a 15 year old mother from being stabbed nearly to death—then we must ask ourselves: What exactly is the value of our child protection system? And more importantly: How many more Aleenas and Tianas must we lose before we fix it?

References

1. Teen mother died from heart failure, anaemia - autopsy — www.stabroeknews.com ↩
2. 22 femicide cases recorded in 2025 - Kaieteur News — kaieteurnewsonline.com ↩
3. The close-in-age defences (the Romeo and Juliet laws) — www.stabroeknews.com ↩
4. ATC issues non-bailable warrants for Aleema Khan in Nov 26 protest case — tribune.com.pk ↩
5. https://dpp.gy/sites/default/files/Sexual%20Offences%20Act.pdf.pdf ↩