Hidden: Betrayed, Exploited and Forgotten. How One Boy Overcame the Odds. by Cathy Glass

Author:Cathy Glass [Glass, Cathy]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Foster Children, General, Foster Home Care, Foster Mothers, Family & Relationships, Personal Memoirs, Biography & Autobiography, Non-Fiction, Political Science, Social Services & Welfare, Family Relationships, Public Policy, Psychology, Nigerians
ISBN: 9780007283903
Publisher: Harper Element
Published: 2007-01-02T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Fourteen

A Hectic Week

Tayo had forgotten all about my going out by the following morning when I woke him and told him it was time to get dressed. Only when I dropped him off at school did he remember. ‘Did you have a good evening, Cathy?’ he asked.

‘Yes, thank you, nice of you to ask.’

‘You’re welcome,’ he said with one of his cheeky grins, then jogged off towards the school gates.

Well, he hasn’t been too traumatized, I thought as I watched him go. I’m glad I didn’t cancel.

Within fifteen minutes of returning home, I was on the phone to Sandra. She’d received my email detailing what Tayo had said about his scar and the factory, and had called at once, genuinely shocked.

‘The poor kid has really been through it,’ she said. ‘I can’t believe how he’s coped. It must be such a relief for him to be looked after now, and share all this with you.’

‘Yes, and he has coped very well. Too well in my opinion. He’s so calm and controlled. You know, even when he described how the machine cut his arm, he was very removed, almost emotionless.’

‘I suppose he’s had to be in control of his feelings with Minty being as she is. There’s no way he could ever rely on her. He’s the one who has been in charge and had to remain calm.’

‘Yes. Which reminds me, Minty was pretty incoherent and angry on the phone on Saturday.’ I told her about Minty’s tirade and that she was going to report me.

‘Don’t worry. I’ll deal with it if she phones. She still hasn’t given me her address, and her mobile was off all last week.’

‘It took three attempts for me to get through on Saturday,’ I confirmed. I paused. ‘Sandra, do you think Minty would really have put her eight-year-old son to work in a factory?’

‘It’s a possibility,’ Sandra replied grimly. ‘If she’s in the grip of addictions and needs to fund them … well, it’s by no means out of the question.’

‘But have you ever previously come across a child who has been forced to work in one of these sweatshops?’

‘I haven’t dealt with one personally but a colleague of mine had a case a few years back where a twelve-year-old girl ended up in one. It made the national press because she’d been brought into the country illegally then kept prisoner in a house somewhere in South London and forced into prostitution. The owner of the house had sold her on to work in a sweatshop when he could no longer pass her off as a virgin. She was fourteen when she escaped from the factory.’

‘God! How terrible! That poor girl. Did they get those responsible?’

‘I believe the police arrested the owner of the sweatshop and the owner of the brothel. It was part of an international people-smuggling ring. Apparently her parents in Pakistan had been told she was going to be given good lodgings and educated in England in return for some light housework.

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