Dear Editor,

With every waking second of each passing day in this blood-soaked land of ours, a child is made to suffer the consequences of action that is no fault of its own – the cardinal sin of being born a Jamaican citizen. Our innocent, tender-hearted children are being given a frontal view to imbibe daily the horror movie which details the worst of the crude, vulgar and cruel tendencies which the Jamaican existence has to offer. Our children not only observe their fair share of violence, but are also victims of our unenviable crime statistics.

They are neither exempt from the murderous mayhem nor are they made any safer by virtue of being children. It is an incontrovertible fact that our society has failed our children. In our nefarious state which is bereft of care and love, our children have to fend for themselves. So it comes as no surprise that dozens go missing daily, for when they are not being mercilessly raped and killed, they are forced to work (or beg), and in the process abandon their childhood. The copious numbers of children who populate the streets have become so entrenched in our collective psyche that we fail to realise that it is child labour and it is indeed both illegal and immoral. We continue to delude ourselves when we believe that the care of this nation’s young is the prerogative of governmental institutions, when it is in fact the job of every sane citizen.

Noel Forbes Matherson

noelmatherson@gmail.com