Every day glimmering jets fly past 31-year-old Soledad’s* home on a steep hillside in Quito, Ecuador. Soledad watches wistfully as the planes take flight and sail into the distance, all the while wishing that she, too, could fly away and forever flee her grim circumstances.
From her lofty vantage point, you’d think Soledad was on top of the world – but the truth is, she’s near the lowest point in her life. And she finds it hard to rise above her station.
At the tender age of 13, Soledad’s parents traded her for a bottle of moonshine. The man who acquired her – a man twice her age who calls himself her husband – has threatened to kill her if she ever leaves. He not only robbed her of her value as a human being, he immediately impregnated her, and continued to do so until the prospects of leaving were too costly to consider.
But Soledad does dream about leaving and taking her six children with her. If only she had the means. Very few landlords will rent to a single mother with more than two children, she says. So she does what any good mother would do. “I make myself struggle for the sake of the kids,” she confides.
While her husband is off getting drunk, Soledad works long hours as a maid to pay for her family’s food, utilities and $70 monthly rent. She manages to scrape together about $110 each month, but that barely covers the needs of eight people.
Still, she fights on, going so far as to challenge her husband about his lack of support. “I said if you’re the father, then help them go to school. And he said, ‘Well, they’ll go if they want, or if they won’t, they won’t.’ I’m not going to stand for that! They’re going to have school one way or another.”
*Names have been changed to protect the indentities of those mentioned.
Damon Guinn is a senior staff writer with Children International. Check back tomorrow for Part 2 of Damon's post.
From her lofty vantage point, you’d think Soledad was on top of the world – but the truth is, she’s near the lowest point in her life. And she finds it hard to rise above her station.
At the tender age of 13, Soledad’s parents traded her for a bottle of moonshine. The man who acquired her – a man twice her age who calls himself her husband – has threatened to kill her if she ever leaves. He not only robbed her of her value as a human being, he immediately impregnated her, and continued to do so until the prospects of leaving were too costly to consider.
But Soledad does dream about leaving and taking her six children with her. If only she had the means. Very few landlords will rent to a single mother with more than two children, she says. So she does what any good mother would do. “I make myself struggle for the sake of the kids,” she confides.
While her husband is off getting drunk, Soledad works long hours as a maid to pay for her family’s food, utilities and $70 monthly rent. She manages to scrape together about $110 each month, but that barely covers the needs of eight people.
Still, she fights on, going so far as to challenge her husband about his lack of support. “I said if you’re the father, then help them go to school. And he said, ‘Well, they’ll go if they want, or if they won’t, they won’t.’ I’m not going to stand for that! They’re going to have school one way or another.”
*Names have been changed to protect the indentities of those mentioned.
Damon Guinn is a senior staff writer with Children International. Check back tomorrow for Part 2 of Damon's post.
Fellow writer Deron Denton and I wanted to interview Jessica because she had recently received one of the wheelchairs a group called Free Wheelchair Mission donated to sponsored children with disabilities, and we were curious to know how it was helping her get along. Our answer waited at the top of a dizzying set of narrow stone stairs that led to a claustrophobic, attic-like apartment Jessica shares with her petite grandmother, Doña Carmen.
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