Dear Editor,
The steady increase in violence against women recently inspired action by the government, religious bodies and civil society. Men were reined in at the National Park on January 24, 2010 for a stern admonition by Bahamas Faith Ministries Senior Pastor, Dr Myles Munroe. But, what about the children? Who are we going to rein in for the steady increase in violence against children?
I am still haunted by that image of a severely beaten toddler under the headline, ‘Three-year-old badly beaten by relative,’ which appeared in the February 1 edition of the Stabroek News. Recurring incidents of violence in our society dutifully recorded by the media have had a numbing effect. But this case jolted my consciousness into the shocking realisation that something has gone dreadfully wrong in Guyana.
“Badly beaten” hardly begins to describe the picture of a child with swollen and black-and-blue eyes and lips, not to mention the deep emotional scar he would carry well into his adulthood. But the more critical issue here is, what could a three-year old possibly do to justify such grievous wounding by anyone?
Psychologists would have a mile-long list of reasons to explain the cruelty of this child’s alleged abusers, but in my layman’s opinion, we have failed to protect the children of Guyana. Yes indeed, not every child suffers this kind of abuse, but too many do and the problem is seemingly unabated.
In November 2009 alone there were two disturbing cases of child abuse which surfaced in the media. The first was the 14-year-old boy who was tortured, allegedly by members of Guyana Police Force, and the second was an eight-year-old lad who was chained and locked away at his Shieldstown, West Bank Berbice home. Is it any wonder that most of the cases of violence against women are perpetrated by men?
According to the reports on the latter, that eight-year-old child had been beaten with pieces of PVC pipe or other objects and even pelted. The residents nearby said that they would hear the boy’s screams but they were “too afraid to intervene.”
What an indictment against a community that would be “too afraid to intervene,” upon hearing a child scream out in pain and fear. As a child growing up, I would listen to heart-warming stories of whole communities being custodians of children no matter their lineage. So what has happened to that Guyanese tradition adopted from the adage, ‘It takes a whole community to raise a child’?
It has become painfully obvious that incidents of child abuse are no longer isolated. However, what remains unclear is how many more headlines in the daily newspapers it would take to inspire action to curtail this dreadful phenomenon?
I was heartened to learn about the swift action of the two-man Welfare Department at Fort Wellington in Sanjay’s case, to protect this child from his clearly dysfunctional family. This is commendable, but I am afraid that the efficiency of this understaffed department does not address the root of this problem.
The magistrate presiding over this matter at the Blairmont Court, Magistrate Nigel Hawke bemoaned the inadequacies of social systems to deal with such problems. It is time for a multi-sectoral, cross-party response to devise policies, implement strategies or create systems to protect our vulnerable citizens. Let us not wait for one too many headlines.
I would also like to commend Stabroek News for following these cases ‘down to the wire.’
Yours faithfully,
Tusankine English
