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Evil most foul
mervin stoddart INMerv@hotmail.com
Saturday, October 31, 2009
Recently the Observer featured the unbelievable sexual exploits of Corporate Area schoolchildren on public transportation. Not long ago a 13-year-old girl was abducted by gunmen from a Christian camp in Canaan Heights, Clarendon, raped, and left for dead in bushes. By God's grace the youngster was found and taken to hospital and might eventually escape death; but she might never recover from the trauma of her ordeal.
Before that incident there was the alleged carnal abuse of two teenaged girls by a Jamaican-born American evangelist in Westmoreland. The Corporate Area "schoolers" behaved disgustingly, but these items stink with the insinuation that the demons of hell have declared war against two of Jamaica's most precious and delicate resources - its children and its churches.
Although the responsibility for resisting this evil attack against innocence and faith lies mainly with parents, the government should act swiftly to protect righteousness in the land. A Clovis cartoon on August 8 suggested that the government, including Security Minister Dwight Nelson, has been eerily silent about this putrid sore on the society's soul. One wonders whether the evil perversion of the demonic gunmen and paedophiles is greater than the government's pathetic helplessness.
Numerous alarms have blinded and deafened Jamaicans since the 1970s warning that gun crimes and abuse of children are threatening to do more harm to the nation than HIV/AIDS. A 2006 report from UNICEF notes that 91 children were murdered in Jamaica in 2005 constituting 5.44 per cent of the 1674 people slaughtered. The report proved that sexual abuse of children was rampant and child development grossly undermined. From 2001 to 2005, more than 300 children were murdered. There were 367 children raped and another 346 children carnally abused, counting only cases reported in 2005. Worse yet, only 20 per cent of households which experienced rape reported it and only 85 per cent of households with crime victims made any reports. UNICEF extrapolates that in Jamaica "as many as 1,800 cases of rape of children might have occurred in 2005".
The report notes that in 2004, schools closed and children had police escorts to exam centres while others were prisoners in their own homes due to violence. It concluded: "The psychological impact on children and their families is beyond measure. In economic terms, it is estimated to cost the country over $15 billion (US$236M) annually: this is equal to the annual health budget or about half that for education. Children are neither effectively protected from the ravages of violence in their communities nor are they provided with rehabilitative services to recuperate from the effects of violence."
The UN's refugee agency (UNHCR) issued a similar report concerning the failure of Jamaican governments to effectively protect the nation's children. In times like these, I miss Michael Manley. When gunmen threatened to take over Jamaica he instituted the Gun Court. When violence threatened national survival he enforced a state of emergency. Common sense dictates that if a hurricane is coming the people should be warned and protective measures implemented. When bird flu or swine flu threatens, steps are taken to save lives. What steps are being taken by the present government to protect children from this horrendous storm of rapes and gun deaths? Jamaica needs community crime-watch programmes coupled with national media campaigns to help parents, guardians, schools, churches and other places that house children teach the little ones how to protect themselves.
Churches have what it takes to protect themselves from gunmen because many of the freedoms and benefits now being enjoyed by Jamaicans were won by religious denominations. The government must partner with churches to implement measures to ensure that houses of worship and other properties utilised by churches are guaranteed maximum protection, especially those schooling or nurturing children.
The UNICEF report condemned corporal punishment but I disagree, because the Bible warns against sparing the rod and spoiling the child (Proverbs 22:15). Flogging can nip gunmen in the bud. Jamaicans should be shielded from overexposure to crass technology. There must be more social programmes to provide safety nets for parents, especially for mothers who are still children. Fathers must be forced to support children and more efforts made to prevent teenage pregnancies.
Our children need extra protection in these times of economic hardship. Prime Minister Golding and Minister Nelson must act urgently to rid Jamaica of guns and criminals. Certain communities are known for their demonic crimes. What is the government waiting for to have special joint forces of police and military assigned to those communities? Without the complete elimination of or drastic reduction in gun crimes, the country will slide into an economic dark hole and the nation will self-destruct as its children die mentally and physically from rape and bullets. Simultaneously, churches must wake up and add practical steps to prayer to rid Jamaica of this twin cancer of murders and child molestation. Jamaicans must listen to the pleas from Bob Marley and the Wailers: "Never let the children cry/Cause you got to tell Jah-Jah why."
Gunmen who rape and kill children are the scum of the earth, as is anyone, evangelist or otherwise, who molests children. But governments that fail to protect their people ride in the same boat as child killers and molesters. They are all guilty of an evil most foul.
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