Incidents of carnal knowledge and other gross acts involving minors have been multiplying at an alarming rate, or at least the reporting of them has, heightening awareness of the plight of our children, particularly young girls. Numerous cases are now reaching the courts, indicating that there is police action even though there is no burgeoning evidence of successful prosecutions. Even more alarming, however, are the cases that receive only passing mention and about which nothing is being done.
Ever so often, when reporting on other incidents, the media sometimes, perhaps inadvertently perhaps not, unearth evidence of past, present and continuing child abuse, which is not always physical, but just as terrible. Girls aged twelve to sixteen years old blithely confess to being wives and mothers or surrogate mothers. Young boys are discovered as underground apprentices to crime. Children of both sexes of the same age group are employed full time as vendors and labourers and domestic servants and are paid under the table, their labour mostly exploited because they are minors and seem to have no recourse.
Sadly, in the majority of cases there is no Cinderella syndrome at work; no evil step-parent forcing these children into prostitution or servitude. Very few, if any of them can identify with Orphan Annie either. The biological parents are the ones who sit back with ease as their children assume adult roles as breadwinner or major contributor to their family’s daily pot, doing so by fair means or foul.
The United Nations defines violence against children as the “intentional use of physical force or power, threatened or actual that results or is likely to result in injury, death, psychological harm, mal-development or deprivation.”
There is recognition by the authorities that the incidents referred to above constitute abuse and that there is need to address them where they exist. The move to pass legislation that protects children is an acknowledgement of this. However, while we wait for all the legalities to be settled, children continue to live in extremely dangerous situations. And there is very little sign of pro-action. For instance, we have never heard of a case of child abuse brought against parents being dismissed because there was non-conformity with the existing legislation. That would be an indication that someone was batting on the side of our children or at least trying and in so doing, sending a message to parents likely to commit the same offence.
The full range and scale of violence against children and the harm it does is sometimes only visible in the long term when the children become dysfunctional adults. How many times have we not heard or read of probation reports in the courts which cited lack of adequate parenting and love, lack of access to education and poverty as reasons for an accused person’s extreme behaviour? And how many times have we not shrugged it off as just an excuse?
There is no excusing criminality, but for many, the road to present misdeeds started a long time ago when they were mere mites who received absolutely no guidance or care. Children have suffered and continue to suffer at the hands of adults who should be protecting them. Unless and until this is treated as a real emergency; until parents can unlearn and relearn that their children are not their property and they cannot do with them as they please, there will be no end to violence in general. Prevention is crucial.