Small Shoulders. Heavy Burdens.

The first Friday the 13th of 2026 has arrived, a date long associated with bad luck among the superstitious. This year brings a rare triple occurrence, as the 13th day of the month falls on a Friday in February, March and November. While the idea that Friday the 13th is unlucky can be dismissed as mere superstition, the day remains culturally significant. Even if its power lies only in what people believe about it, that belief alone makes it noteworthy. And for many, the superstition is still very real.

While many fear a calendar date, for a young girl in Gwembe, 'bad luck' isn't a superstition, it is a permanent resident in her home. 

During my last travel, I encountered a story that still weighs heavily on my heart to this hour. It is the kind of story that stays with you long after you walk away. Like a shadow on a sunny October day. A Friday the 13th horror story.

Mary (not her real name) is a 10-year-old girl living a life no child should ever endure. She lives with her mother, let’s call her Jane, who suffers from epilepsy.

Based on available records and historical timelines, I estimate Jane to be about 27 years old. Mary was born under circumstances Jane cannot bring herself to discuss. Within the community, painful whispers persist. Whispers of abuse, superstition and cruelty. From what were able to piece together, both Mary and her baby sister were likely conceived by men who believed the myth that sleeping with a woman who has epilepsy would bring them wealth or protect them from imagined danger.

Whatever the origins of these beliefs, whether rooted in superstition or fear, their impact is tragically real. Three innocent lives are now bearing the consequences of these harmful and deeply entrenched practices. Mary is not Jane’s only child. There is also Ruth (also not her real name) who is just eight months old, still a baby and entirely dependent on her mother’s care.

When Jane suffers an epileptic episode, the world stops for this family. And in those moments, it is 10-years old Mary who carries out everything. She becomes the caregiver, the decision-maker, the protector. She watches over her mother as her body convulses and sometimes dashes to the healthcare facility to ask for help. Regardless of the hour and that healthcare facility is about 2 Km away from where they live. She soothes and carries along her crying baby sister. She manages fear, hunger, uncertainty and responsibility all at once. Mary has no childhood to remember: no space for play, no room for dreams. Her days are shaped by survival. At an age when she should be learning, laughing and being held, she is instead holding everyone else together.

And the other relatives? Surely someone should be there, after all we respect the extended family system in Zambia. Surely family should matter. Yet no one could give us a clear answer on where other family members are or live.

We documented this heartbreaking reality and reported it to the Ministry of Community Development and Social Services (MCDSS). We are committed to following up with the relevant authorities. Our hope is that this family will be placed on the Social Cash Transfer programme and relocated to an environment where Jane can receive proper medical care, where Ruth can grow safely and where Mary can finally experience what it means to be a child. They need a radical shift in their fortunes like yesterday.

At first glance, this may appear to be an isolated tragedy: one family, one community, one painful story. But stories like Mary’s do not exist in isolation. They ripple outward, touching our society in ways we often choose not to see. When a child is forced to grow up too soon, when superstition replaces humanity and when silence stands in for responsibility, the cost is carried by all of us.

Mary and Ruth are not just victims of circumstance; they are mirrors held up to our collective conscience. If help does not come now, what kind of future awaits them? What kind of adults are we allowing them to become: shaped by fear, neglect and survival instead of care, protection and love?

Mary shouldn't have to spend her whole life 'goodwill hunting' like scavenging for the basic kindness and safety that should be her birthright.

A society is ultimately judged by how it treats its most vulnerable. If we allow children like Mary to carry burdens meant for adults, we are not merely failing one family, we are quietly accepting a future built on abandonment. There is still time to intervene, to protect and to restore what has been taken.

But time, like childhood, does not wait.