“I just want to see my children. I miss them so much and it is almost two months since I have not seen them. You would not understand how stressed I am and I am trying all kinds of things but still I can’t see my children,” Nadia Simmons lamented.

The 26-year-old Simmons, who last saw her children on May 31. Their father reportedly removed them from his sister’s home and the two boys — aged six and two years old — have not been seen since. Up to last Friday afternoon, Simmons had not seen her children or their father since that date but an investigation has been launched and this was expected to be changed shortly.

Simmons said she spoke to her two sons last Tuesday for the first time when she tried their father’s number using a friend’s phone.

“Morning baby,” was how the conversation, which was recorded, started between the mother and her children.

“I want come with yuh,” said a young voice.

“I know but mammy can’t find you, mammy don’t know where you are.” “With me Daddy,” the child responded. Simmons then asked the older boy where they were and he responded, “We deh by we father”.

She then asked the child to go to the neighbour’s house and call her and he responded, “Yes mammy, daddy nah let me”.

She informed the child that their father was not giving her access to them and that the only way she could find them was if he went to the neighbour and asked that they call her number or any police station.

The child paused and a male voice could be heard saying, “Talk to yuh mother, don’t frighten, talk to she.”

The mother then called the person by name and said, “Where are my kids? I want them.”

He responded “Yuh talking to me now.” “Why you keeping me children away from me, wah I do yuh, man?” she asked, but the man did not answer.

Simmons again called for her older son and asked him the colour of the house they were living in and he said red, but there was some muffled whispering in the background. It sounded as if the call was then muted as she could no longer hear the children.

“It was heartbreaking hearing my children and I can’t see them and I don’t know where they are,” she told me sadly.

While she has engaged various arms of the system, her children have not been located and her frustration led to her making a Facebook post, which saw her arrested by the police.

She said she could not understand why their father took them because she never denied him access.

Simmons is from Bartica but in March this year she travelled to the city to further her studies and she had someone who took care of them. On May 31, she sought the assistance of their aunt (their father’s sister) who agreed to take care of the children on that day. Her class ended late and Simmons said she tried calling the woman to inform her that she would collect the children the next day and surprisingly she got no answer.

A friend then dialled the number and the woman answered and said she had given the children to their father; she refused to take Simmons’s calls.

“Every day after then I try and nothing. And a friend even told me that maybe he didn’t take them for long and that he must be just want spend time with them. I keep calling his number and he did not answer. I went back to the sister house and she said to me her brother collected them. I told her that she had to call her brother and let me speak to my children because she could just be telling me that he take them and is nothing like that. I told her if not I going to the station,” she said.

She reported the matter to the La Grange Police Station and when the officers called the aunt she said she was going to take the children to the station. Hours passed and she did not show up and when contacted again she informed the officers that she could not get in contact with her brother.

“I went back home and the next day I went to the Child Care officer and report the matter and they try calling the father but no answer,” Simmons said. “A male officer at the Pouderoyen Police Station give me a letter and send me to the Family Court and they tell me to come back on June 16. When I went back they tell me that they can’t file the matter because they don’t know where the father and the children is.

“I went back to the station and the officer in charge send me with a patrol to the sister’s house and she refused to come out. We went back to the station and they made an entry and later went back and this time she came out on the veranda and told the police different stories,” she continued.

“After she was not comporting with the police we left again. It was that same day, in frustration, I make a post on Facebook and I post he photograph, the children photographs and the photograph of the woman I know he was with and I ask anyone to inform me of their whereabouts.

“The next day I got a call from a Officer Euro who told me how he had me children at the Vigilance Police Station and I must go for them and I even had to ask he for direction how to get there. When I reach at the station I give my name and said I am here to uplift my kids… Is then they tell me how I getting charge for using an electronic device to commit a crime. After they finish booking me they ask me if I made the post and I told them yes and why. The phone was taken away and I was taken to CID and I was told that it was a cybercrime to post somebody photograph without their permission.”

Simmons said from what she understood the woman reported the post to the police. She said since then the woman has made several posts about her and that has not been investigated. She has since been told that her file has been sent to the Director of Public Prosecutions; she is yet to be charged.

Separated

According to Simmons, she separated from the father of her children when she was pregnant with their last child.

“Separate because we couldn’t agree. I summons him [took him to court for child maintenance] for the big one because it was very expensive taking care of him as he is asthmatic and I use to ask he for help but he refuse. He was ordered to pay $4,000 a week and he never paid for the year and more and I don’t know if that is why he took them…” she said.

“The big one miss school since he take them because the work use to come to the phone and he would complete it and I sent back to the teacher. I give the teacher the father number but she said she was not getting on to him so he was absent for all them weeks and he did not do any work,” she continued.

“We don’t really communicate because every time we have a conversation he always going back to the past when we were together and things I do. Even one time we went to welfare and the people tell him that they don’t want to hear about past story, but is about how we can move forward. I would tell him for us to talk about the children and how we can be parents to them but he always going back to the past,” she lamented.

She recalled that one Christmas he visited Bartica and on the advice of her family she allowed him to remain in her house for a few days just to spend time with the children.

“It is not like I want to keep them away from him. In April was the big one birthday and I was calling him and he never answered. I would not say that he don’t love his children or he does abuse them or anything,” she continued.

Simmons said if the man reads this column she would ask him: “Why would you want to take my children away from me?”

She added, “He is just being vindictive and doing this to hurt me but he is also hurting the children. The little one always likes to sleep with me, he is my baby. I miss my children because we actually share everything. We have a certain connection. Yes they may like their father and glad for the outing but my baby I know personally is grieving…

“How are we supposed to work if this is the attitude because I would be scared to have him around. Is like you are living in fear when this person is around how he now behaving.”

Rights to both parents

I contacted Director of the Child Care and Protection Agency Ann Greene, who said the matter was engaging the attention of the agency which was working with the police to locate the children as the first priority is their safety. Once the children are found then they would engage both parents in the best interest of the children.

Speaking in a general sense, Greene said the question of access to children is the right of both parents. She noted that when there is a separation children are in double jeopardy, explaining that they already have to deal with their parents being separated and having access to both of them. When the parents are unable to come to a compromise and have a structure on how they will both have access to the children then the trouble starts because children need to benefit from balanced parental care.

The Director said fathers have the same rights to children as mothers but in some instances a father might need to test his right in the Family Court and there are times when a mother might have to take the same approach.

Greene said the agency usually intervenes to help the parents to understand that children need access to both of them and would help them to work out a structure so that they can co-parent. But importantly the cooperation of both parents is needed.

There are times when a parent who is denied access has to go to the Family Court because if the agency fails to get them to agree on structure that is the route that has to be taken. She pointed out that many times an agreement cannot be made because the pain of the separation is still evident and they cannot see past that pain to work for the welfare of the children.

Greene made it clear that no father can say he has rights and just remove a child or children and hide them away from their mother; no mother has that right either.

In such instances the agency works with the police in locating those children and may even take them into care while working with the parents on establishing a structure.

“We have to look at the safety and welfare of the child. You cannot just say you have rights and go and snatch the child and the other parent don’t have the right. That amounts to bullyism and they are not thinking about the welfare of the child,” Greene said.

She said the agency would make it clear to the parents that it would not be in the best interest of the child to be in state care and as such it was imperative that they worked together so that the child could benefit from the care of both parents.

“We do not grant custody, the court grants custody. We look at child protection and see that the child is protected and work with parents to bring them to a point for the best welfare of that child. It pains me, every hour of the day we have to be dealing with such situations. It is consuming most of our time to get parents to understand that they have to work for the best welfare of the children,” Greene lamented.

I can only pray that Simmons will soon have access to her children and that she and their father can work on establishing that structure.