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A dirty state of affairs
Sunday, November 15, 2009
Our stomachs are still churning at the information that teenaged girls are being held hostage by inner-city thugs, aka 'dons', who sexually abuse, impregnate and infect them with Sexually Transmitted Diseases (STDs) at will.
According to last Thursday's edition of our daily, Miss Betty-Ann Blaine, convener of the Hear the Children's Cry lobby group, has assembled six months of research concerning cases in which dons simply take these teenaged girls from their families and use them for sex.
As we understand it, the destinies of these girls are cast years before they come to what these dons decide is the age of sexual readiness. It works, we are told, like this: The dons watch the girls growing up in the community and then as soon as they hit puberty they simply send for them. In many instances the parents comply, again we are told, out of fear for their lives. Others who are more alert keep their daughters as long as they dare and then send them away to live with relatives or report them missing in order to escape the dirty influences of these dons.
Unlike Deputy Superintendent Herfa Beckford, head of the Centre for the Investigation of Sexual Offences and Child Abuse, we do not think that there is not enough evidence on which the police can act in these scenarios.
Indeed, according to the provisions of the Child Care and Protection Act, which makes it mandatory for these and other instances of abuse to be reported, they, along with their parents, are parties to these crimes by virtue of their inactivity.
And we believe Superintendent Beckford should really be called upon to explain how such information as outlined by Miss Blaine can be dismissed as useless hearsay, especially within the context of a police force that has repeatedly declared how much it depends on the public for information, leads and clues.
For from where we sit, it seems clear that if information reaches the police that such and such a don is holding such and such a teenager as a sex slave, the least the police could do is go and find out if it is true. And if it is, then an arrest should be made and justice allowed to take its course.
But we all know Superintendent Beckford's explanation is ludicrous.
The truth is that successive administrations have brazenly embraced the culture of the dons, shielding them from the laws that would erode the criminal influence they wield over the young and vulnerable who are unfortunate enough to be born within the nasty little republics known as garrisons and which were created by the sick politics of division.
This space again asks the question: What do we - the survivors who are able, for the time being, to exist in bubble of what is left of civilised society - do?
Do we abandon the civilised, constitutionally endorsed channels of communication and take to the streets to make our point, like the employees of the Sangster International Airport whose story is reported in yesterday's edition?
Or do we press along in the hope that more people of influence, like former police commissioner Rear Hardley Lewin, will speak out against the undeniable link between the politicians and the crime that have all but enslaved all of us?
It's clearly a time for some serious decision-making.
Sunday, November 15, 2009
Our stomachs are still churning at the information that teenaged girls are being held hostage by inner-city thugs, aka 'dons', who sexually abuse, impregnate and infect them with Sexually Transmitted Diseases (STDs) at will.
According to last Thursday's edition of our daily, Miss Betty-Ann Blaine, convener of the Hear the Children's Cry lobby group, has assembled six months of research concerning cases in which dons simply take these teenaged girls from their families and use them for sex.
As we understand it, the destinies of these girls are cast years before they come to what these dons decide is the age of sexual readiness. It works, we are told, like this: The dons watch the girls growing up in the community and then as soon as they hit puberty they simply send for them. In many instances the parents comply, again we are told, out of fear for their lives. Others who are more alert keep their daughters as long as they dare and then send them away to live with relatives or report them missing in order to escape the dirty influences of these dons.
Unlike Deputy Superintendent Herfa Beckford, head of the Centre for the Investigation of Sexual Offences and Child Abuse, we do not think that there is not enough evidence on which the police can act in these scenarios.
Indeed, according to the provisions of the Child Care and Protection Act, which makes it mandatory for these and other instances of abuse to be reported, they, along with their parents, are parties to these crimes by virtue of their inactivity.
And we believe Superintendent Beckford should really be called upon to explain how such information as outlined by Miss Blaine can be dismissed as useless hearsay, especially within the context of a police force that has repeatedly declared how much it depends on the public for information, leads and clues.
For from where we sit, it seems clear that if information reaches the police that such and such a don is holding such and such a teenager as a sex slave, the least the police could do is go and find out if it is true. And if it is, then an arrest should be made and justice allowed to take its course.
But we all know Superintendent Beckford's explanation is ludicrous.
The truth is that successive administrations have brazenly embraced the culture of the dons, shielding them from the laws that would erode the criminal influence they wield over the young and vulnerable who are unfortunate enough to be born within the nasty little republics known as garrisons and which were created by the sick politics of division.
This space again asks the question: What do we - the survivors who are able, for the time being, to exist in bubble of what is left of civilised society - do?
Do we abandon the civilised, constitutionally endorsed channels of communication and take to the streets to make our point, like the employees of the Sangster International Airport whose story is reported in yesterday's edition?
Or do we press along in the hope that more people of influence, like former police commissioner Rear Hardley Lewin, will speak out against the undeniable link between the politicians and the crime that have all but enslaved all of us?
It's clearly a time for some serious decision-making.