Welfare Department looking for Lilly
Stabroek News
November 21, 2003
The Welfare Department of the Ministry of Human Services and Social Security said yesterday that welfare officers are attempting to locate one-year-old Lilly Annamae Jemella Wong and her mother to inquire into the child's welfare.
The child, who was abandoned by her mother for three days, was taken to the ministry on Wednesday but was sent back to the Sophia home of the strangers who had kept her after the welfare officers failed to get her into a home.
Joy Rowley, who reported that her husband told her that the child's mother abandoned her in his taxi with a bag filled with clothing and other articles, brought the child to Stabroek News on Wednesday morning. After attempts were made to contact the child's mother she was taken to the ministry and the officers had promised that she would have been placed in a home. But she was later sent back into Rowley's care and a few hours after she was collected by her mother.
Yesterday when Stabroek News contacted the welfare department, a senior officer said that an investigation has been launched into why the child was sent back into Sophia. She also described the situation as very unfortunate.
An attempt to speak to the permanent secretary of the ministry proved to be futile and it was reported that Minister Bibi Shadick was out of the country.
Also yesterday Lilly's mother visited Stabroek News, upset that her daughter's plight had been publicised. She said that she had not abandoned her child, rather the taxi driver had promised to keep the child for a few days after she told him she had nowhere to stay. However, she admitted that she had not known the taxi driver prior to Sunday night and said that he had given her an incorrect telephone number. The angry woman said that she had spent, "lots of money looking for him Monday and Tuesday. Do you know what you have done? Do you know by publishing this story with my child's photograph that you can make her be placed in a home?"
The woman denied that the child had ever been placed in a temporary home, as one welfare officer had reported on Wednesday when Stabroek News visited the ministry with the child.
Yesterday there were a number of calls to this newspaper from persons who wanted to help little Lilly and her mother, who is a teacher at a city school. (Samantha Alleyne)