–challenges facing CARICOM states
Analysis
BARBADIANS ARE currently crying out against a very challenging social problem that Jamaicans, Trinidadians, Guyanese and citizens of some other member states of the Caribbean Community have had to face — or are still coping with, in varying degrees: Sex molestation of children at schools.
A difference of note, though age groups may vary, is that in the current distressing scenario in Barbados, the sex offences involve not just young teens, but boys and girls below ten years, who are either victims or perpetrators.
Within a week of the ‘Saturday Sun’ of Barbados reporting (on March 5) the shocking case of how a four-year-old boy was thrice buggered in one week by boys older than him in the school’s toilet, he had to be treated at the State-run Queen Elizabeth Hospital, but couldn’t identify his attackers, because, according to his parents and teachers, the culprits had had their hands on his face, and he did not know them.
The police were investigating that sickening incident when the Barbados ‘Daily Nation’ of March 9 reported that the Ministry of Education and Human Resources had launched a probe into the recent “wave of molestations at primary schools,” following specific complaints made against two primary schools, with at least four sex crimes said to have been committed within a month at one such school.
While gang violence, rape and murder have often been associated by some to the drug culture and lyrics of dance-hall music in Jamaica, pop stars of the region who invest their fortunes in dirty sex lyrics are now coming under some sharp criticisms for contributing to the very worrying decline in morality and social behaviour among youth and children at school.
It is soul-wrenching to follow the increasing media reports of sexual molestation of children at schools in Barbados and elsewhere, at a time of spreading horror stories of raping and buggering of teenagers and small children, as our region of the Greater Caribbean struggle to beat back spreading sexual perversion and immorality as well as rampaging criminality that has done enormous harm to the reputation of the affected states.

TV and sex videos

Barbados is currently very much in the news in lamenting the woes of sex molestation of children at schools. But those who are today sickened in the stomach by the social decay, the sheer wickedness spreading in that Eastern Caribbean nation, well known for its embrace of established religious values and ethical social behaviour, would rightly take no comfort in rationalizing that it is a curse afflicting many nations across the world.
A combination of parental neglect and/or irresponsibility; breakdown in family life; indiscipline and rudeness by children at home and at school; compromising teachers, disregard, if not open rebellion against religious values, compromising teachers and a general falling of standards in social behaviour seem to be the order of the day across our region — aided by unguided television programmes and dirty lyrics and gyrations of music videos.
There are those in public life who even find it expedient to rationalize, if not unconditionally defend lyrics and gestures that are evidently corrupting minds, in this and other CARICOM states.
Recent public discussions, in the case of Barbados, have focused on the offerings of, for example, the Barbados-born international singing star, Rihanna, whose S&M music video has been banned from a number of countries for dirty lyrics.
My children and grandchildren know that I am no fan of Rihanna. But I respect her candour, even though I have a problem with her rationalization to simply remain famous and rich. Just follow this example of saucy chorus of her S&M video… “Sex in the air; I don’t care. I like the smell of it. Sticks and stones may break my bones but chains and whips…”
When children join adults, or by themselves become excited, in singing such lyrics and then to further learn of discussions and advertisements that promote introduction of condoms in schools, are we really helping to build a healthy environment?

The condom ‘message’

Why should children at primary and secondary schools be given condoms and then we pretend to be surprised, or hurt, by their engagement in sex when they should be really focused on school work and respect for parents/guardians and their teachers—who in turn must learn to respect themselves?
Perhaps the time is now, more than before, for some new initiatives, including a national consultation on the serious social problems facing Barbados and its CARICOM partners.
I think it may have to involve informed and respected representatives of all segments of the society to come forward with ideas on how to beat back the forces of immorality and criminality.
Of course, such a consultation must be imaginatively structured with limited working papers –not bulky documents — that offer specific proposals for action and to avoid the occasion being a ‘talkfest’.
The social scientists, criminologists, representatives of governments, political parties, the business sector, labour, women, men, and youth organizations, plus, of course leaders of the Christian and other faiths would be expected to be involved.
Meanwhile, just this past week, a well-known religious educator and family counsellor in Barbados, Haynesley Griffith, has called on the authorities to cut the talk and get about enacting legislation to “imprison sexual abusers of children.”
Griffith,  a family counsellor with over 30 years ministry, feels that too often, cases involving suspected or known abusers of children go unpunished for want of decisive follow-up actions by those in possession of such knowledge — among them counsellors and officers of law enforcing agencies.
“I am screaming,” he said, “for legislation, which exists in neighbouring Caribbean countries, to be passed so that abusers of children can face the court and be sent to prison when found guilty…”
In Jamaica, there is a different kind of problem involving vulnerable children. As reported last week by the ‘Daily Observer’, the country’s first ever Children Rights Advocate, Mary Clarke, was lamenting the sad reality that she would be going on pre-retirement leave next month without being able to achieve what she so much needed: Bringing an end to the continuing practice of keeping children in lock-ups without any concerted action to give them the opportunities for rehabilitation.
From my distance, I guess that in going public with either deep concerns, on the eve of her departure from office, after being a stout advocate for some five years of the rights of vulnerable children in lock-ups — most of them 16-year-old males caught up in conflict with the law — Mary Clarke must be desperately hoping, even now, for a positive response from the Jamaica Government.