The foreign woman at the centre of police investigations after claims of being kidnapped and treated as a sex slave is now being cared for at the Bordelais Correctional Facility.
This strange tale, which is now more than a week old since snippets of it entered the public domain, is getting more interesting with each passing day.
Acting Deputy of Police Dorian O’Brian told reporters Tuesday that the woman was placed at Bordelais on a suicide watch.
“At some point in time, we recognized that she was suicidal, so we had to put her at the Bordelais Correctional Facility where there is a suicide watch bay,” O’Brian said, stressing that the woman was at the correctional facility “not as an inmate awaiting a court hearing of any sort.’
“For her own safety, we had to put her at the Facility to protect her from herself. And yes, she is still at Bordelais, as we speak, in protective care,” O’Brian added.
The woman, whose name is still being withheld by police, was widely reported to be in her teens. In fact several media houses, including this one and those online, referred to her as a sixteen-year-old. This has since been debunked by O’Brian, who refrained from giving her true age, but stated rather firmly that the woman was “not a teenager”.
Her nationality is also still an unknown matter to the police, although two persons had identified her as their daughter.
“Presently, we are trying to ascertain the real nationality of that individual. We also had persons we believed were the parents. They came down from the French territory of Martinique — a mother and father — and identified her as their daughter. But she indicated that she does not know them, so we are still in the process of having to go the way of DNA in order to ascertain the identity of the individual — and that is where we are at presently,” O’Brian said.
Media reports that the woman was a possible victim of human and sex traffickers and could not be substantiated by O’Brian, who said that police simply could not confirm these allegations at the moment.
However, when pressed he said that the woman is tri-lingual in that “she speaks French, Spanish and a little English.”
Meanwhile, the woman’s plight continues to be investigated while public discussion of her case continues.
The St Lucia Labour Party’s Women’s Organization (SLPWO) issued a statement on the issue yesterday, calling for action in defense of the woman and Saint Lucian women generally
This woman is obviously afraid for her life. There are lots of negative things happening in Saint Lucia we know much about . Lots of freak just like in the US. Please help her as much as you can.
Why would you place someone going through this at the prison and not the wellness centre where she could speak with a professional.. counselor/ psychiatric doctor???
Makes no sense to me..?
What should be seen as urgent now by the authorities in Saint Lucia is the repatriation of the young woman to her family and homeland. There’s no good reason to keep her here any longer nor take her through the local court. We see already she is costing money for upkeeping. This money we may not be able to recover from anywhere. I would suggest therefore the Ministry of External Affairs, Ministry of National Security, Ministry of Finance, Department of Human Services and the Police collaborate to repatriate the woman as soon as possible because Saint Lucia does not need another casualty on its account.