The Plight

The Victim Support Unit of the Blantyre Police Department is literally an 8 x 12 foot shack with a tin roof.  Three desks are scrunched inside, and it is here that VSU handles 20 child abuse and 150 domestic violence cases per month.  With funding from UNICEF, VSU child protection officers received training by a clinical psychologist to provide short-term play therapy to child survivors of abuse.  The shack is an inadequate setting for therapy, and often the child’s home is not a proper location; thus, there are many children who do not receive even short-term therapy.

As we sat under a tree meeting with leaders of VSU, the Public Prosecutor’s Office, National Juvenile Justice Forum, and UNICEF, a young child age 5 or 6 was brought reluctantly into the office – he had been picked up by police moments earlier smashing cars in the parking lot of Shop Rite.  No parents in sight.  His name?  Unknown.  He was mute and had a bad left eye.  Before we knew it, he had snatched a bottle of water from under one of our chairs and walked off quickly, gulping it down like it was another day’s work.  Everyone turned their heads and sighed, sad, wondering what depths of neglect this child had suffered… and survived.  When he came around again, Eric gave him a granola bar, and he quickly warmed up.  When I pulled out my camera, he brought out the most beautiful smile:

As a pediatrician I quickly ran through the different possibilities for why he did not speak, but in that moment, none of that mattered.  His smile knocked me flat.  We learned he would have to be taken to an orphanage, where we could only hope that he would have a better life.