By Suzie Raines - ABC News
Emai Owen describes herself as a "glass half full" person.
When she was five months old, she was so badly burnt in a fire in a remote village in Papua New Guinea her head was fused to her neck.
Her mother believes it was a deliberate act of violence perpetrated because of a land dispute.
Since that attack in 2004 she's had 19 reconstructive surgeries. Now at 15 years old, she lives in Melbourne and counts herself lucky.
"Me getting burnt in that fire was heartbreaking," she said.
"Do I wish that it never happened? No.
WARNING: This story contains images that some readers may find distressing
'It's not worth trying to save her, just let her go up to God'
Emai's mother, Elsie Owen, believes her daughter was deliberately placed in the fire by enemies of the family, an act of violence perpetrated because of an ongoing land dispute.
"People lifted her from her bed and deliberately pushed her face into the fire and that's how she got burnt," Mrs Owen told the ABC.
She detailed what happened in a statutory declaration — an official document signed and declared to be true in the presence of an authorised witness.
In that document, Mrs Owen recounts walking from her village of Musave to stay a night in the neighbouring village of Katipro so she could take Emai to a clinic for immunisations the following day.
Both Musave and Katipro are very remote villages in PNG's Eastern Highlands.
Mrs Owen said she left baby Emai on a bed in her deceased parents' hut, surrounded by objects, and went to wash in a stream.
She said she was gone about 20 minutes and on returning to the house, found Emai in the fire.
"The cooking pots [on the fire] and wire frame had been removed and she had been pushed to the centre," Mrs Owen said in the declaration.
"I believe she was deliberately harmed by persons in the village who had an ongoing disputation with my family."
Emai was rushed to a nearby health centre where they applied sugar paste, toothpaste and aloe vera to her burns.
It took Emai's parents five hours to carry her from the village to the nearest hospital in the town of Goroka.
"They said in their own words it's not worth trying to save her, just let her go up to God," Emai said.
"Basically, there wasn't anything they could do, [they] were just telling my parents that they should just let me die."
'The most severe burns I'd treated at that age'
Despite her severe burns, Emai survived in Goroka Hospital for almost a year before an Australian nurse found her.
Arrangements were made with the Goroka Rotary Club and Children First Foundation for Emai to be medically evacuated to Australia.
"When she came to Australia, she was one of the most severe burn survivors I'd treated at that age," said reconstructive surgeon Christopher Coombs.
"She was only about a year and a half old and because they had limited ways to treat her, she ended up with severe scarring. In fact the side of her face was welded to the forearm."
Since arriving in Melbourne in 2004, Geoff Clarke and his late wife Catharine McKean have supported Emai, who lives at their home in East Melbourne.
"When she was small she sometimes got stared at by other small children and she found that distressing, but that's all passed now," Mr Clarke said.
"I think she's had a very normal life to date apart from all the surgeries she's had."
The teenager said she's grateful for her education at her Melbourne school.
Her childhood injuries haven't stopped her from pursuing her passions, like shooting hoops with her basketball team and playing the drums.
"I believe in every bad situation, there comes a good situation out of it," she said.
Along her road to recovery, Emai was granted a protection visa and Australian Citizenship.
Emai's parents believe their child would be at risk of harm if she returned to Musave village.
Mrs Owen's statutory declaration reveals further details about attacks perpetrated against her family because of the land dispute.
"My parents were poisoned in 2003 and 2004. Family enemies sought the services of sorcerers to disempower them, and enable the delivery of a lethal injection of chemicals," she said in the document.
The Home Affairs department declined to comment on Emai's case, but reiterated the purpose of a protection visa is to safeguard people who cannot return to their home country "due to a well-founded fear of persecution or risk of harm".
Pervasive violence in PNG
Mr Clarke and Emai travelled to Papua New Guinea to visit Emai's parents in June, and they met in the town of Goroka because of safety concerns.
"There is a significant underlaying problem of sorcery being believed in and people with injuries or disabilities bringing bad luck to the village," Mr Clarke said.
"There's been a rise in sorcery recently with innocent people being accused of being witches and these people are being brutally, brutally dealt with."
Violence is not uncommon in remote PNG and children can be attacked or caught in the crossfire, said Denga Ilave, operations director of Femili PNG.
"Especially up in the highlands, the dangers surrounding this type of accusation are a reality that affects women and children … and it puts life at risk."
She said there was the persistent threat of accused sorcerer's houses being burned down or people being forced from their homes, and police are sometimes too afraid to intervene.
"They lose everything they own and in fear of their life, they will try to run away to escape the violence," she said.
"If the community people outnumber the police officers, it can be risky for our police to intervene."
It was an emotional reunion for Emai and her family in PNG, but Mr Clarke says she's thriving in Australia and is a person with "great inner strength".
"She was born with spirit, and she tackles everything with spirit," he said.
No comments:
Post a Comment