I was about to write another article totally unrelated to this one when a Stabroek News editorial on the recent imprisonment of a father for beating his promiscuous teen caught my eye. That editorial gave justification to the magistrate’s six weeks sentencing of a father for flogging his out-of-place teen. Artfully penned, that editorial suggests that sentencing the father was sending a message to parents that beating their children cannot take place in a Guyanese society.
While I may agree with the editor on the grounds that brutalising one’s child for his/her bad behaviour is wrong, I cannot disagree more on the fact that parents cannot discipline a child based on the age-old tried and proven method of flogging. I would challenge any editor or sociologist to prove me wrong on this one. Are you telling me that something- editor included – that we were brought up on is already banned? Then heaven help us! Are you telling me that as a parent you can’t touch them irrespective of their behaviour? Then, I would say as a West Indian a lot of heads need checking. Let me tell that editor in clear language there is a lot of Americanism going on in these parts with no sensible explanation behind it.
Here we have a teen disciplined, albeit in an injurious fashion, would then have her father sent away for six weeks and this is considered a “spot on decision” by a magistrate. Then, something isn’t radically wrong with that magistrate? That man is the sole breadwinner of his household, a vendor at that, one who has to eke out a daily bread in a punishing, unforgiving Guyanese society. Then who will take care of his family in the intervening six weeks? What systems are in place for “protective, quality care” of the sexually active teen? Is it the Human Services Ministry that we all know lack the manpower and resources to deal with such cases? Or is it an aunt or grandmother whom the teen has no fear of?
We are all aware of the Guyanese “cannot control the child” factor. The real word is discipline or correct behaviour of a child of that age. Clearly that teen has no respect for her body, hence none for those whose supervision she comes under. She sees her promiscuity as a fun thing, but this is not funny at all because such high-risk behaviour has pregnancies, disease, abuse, even death at the other end of the road. So it is not at all funny to say the least.
Neither is she afraid of her father for in a flash she could have gone to the police station to report the incident (abuse) and have her father arrested. Further, the magistrate’s decision to send him away for six weeks was not helpful either. Her decision was in line with the teen’s plan to get her father out of the way. Immobilise him so that she can continue with her “business”. Did Madam Justice take all of these things into consideration before making that horrible decision? I am afraid she did not?
Again I must say in our haste to become “Americanised” we are stretching this child abuse clause too far and dire consequences await us in the long run.
I am saying these cases are fashioning fathers, in this case a single parent, into having stony hearts where their errant children are concerned and this is not a nice picture for poor, struggling families. In these difficult times that teen should be gainfully harnessing her energies on schoolwork in preparation for her CXC examination; rather, she is fixated on sleeping around and having relations with adult men? In this regard she is the next prime suspect on becoming a statistical data. Not comforting news for a caring, concerned father. The editorial then made mention that the father should have had those adult men charged for statutory rape. Very interesting! Do you think that daughter would dare implicate any of those men? Certainly not! So that idea of going after those men is idle talk. From all the information provided, that girl sees her father as the evil man, not her adult partners who in most of these cases are the abusive predators.