By Neals Chitan
Although the very last label I will like to wear is that of an “alarmist,” I have to sound the alarm today. You see, the term “alarmist” carries with it an urgent emotional connotation which heightens the need for immediate intervention and task force response, and that is exactly what I think is needed as I listen and read the commentaries and news headlines of what is currently happening in the island nation of Jamaica, a place I have fallen in love with during my recent visit and assignments.
Over the past weeks the media was littered with reports of young Jamaican girls, I mean babies, dying to the hands of adult males who rape, impregnate and sometime kill them. Recently, Jamaican dancehall artiste Clifford Smith who goes by the stage name Mr. Vegas, reached his tolerance limit for the sexual assault on the nation’s “baby girls” and posted on his Facebook page a personal “straight from the heart message” about a recent picture he saw of the chopped up body of a “little girl” whose “big man” relative had sex with her, got her pregnant and “chopped her up as meat”. After mentioning the case of another fourteen year old girl who was impregnated and chopped up in Westmoreland by a big man, Mr. Vegas asks “can you imagine the agony and pain these children went through?”
On Sunday March 15, 2015, reporter Nadine Wilson-Harris in The Jamaican Gleaner, captioned her article “My Baby’s Baby!- Eleven old pregnant after sexual assault by two adult men,” and a front page shot of what seem to be a 28 year old pregnant mother with her eleven year old pregnant daughter who was allegedly assaulted by a 52 year old relative.
AW-All Woman publication, on Thursday March 19, 2015, ran another commentary captioned “UNITED NATIONS-Bring pedophiles and enablers to book!” urging the nation to take a zero tolerance approach to the crisis of pedophiles preying on children in Jamaica.
Yet another Jamaican news media RJR News published on March 12, 2015 the report of Superintendent Enid Ross Stewart who captioned her report “Crisis!-More reports of young girls having sex with older men.” Could you imagine the way this caption is worded? And by a woman too!! “More girls having sex with older men”. So let’s break it down! “Crisis” oh yeah, we all will agree that as the previous two articles or even the video from Mr. Vegas expressed, there is a crisis in Jamaica that needs to be addressed immediately. But, “More reports of young girls having sex with older men” seems to be judgementally blaming the young girls for initiating and coercing older men into sex, when all indications seem to suggest that most of them are raped or killed after being forced into sex for material things or money by older men. So what about “Crisis!-More reports of older men raping and having sex with younger girls” as the correct caption, as per the evidence.
Although the 21st century’s blatant and explicit sexual dipiction and overtures in mainstream and social media have indeed drastically increased the sexual consciousness and desire of children and youth, when an adult chooses to engage in sexual activity with a child, the blame and responsibility has to be dropped squarely into the lap of the adult, the same disrespectful lap that got excited at the sight of a child and mindlessly engaged in the sex act with a minor.
I vividly remember speaking at the BB Coke Secondary School in Junction St. Elizabeth, Jamaica less than ten months ago. As I captivated the attention of the students present in my “Project STOP ‘n’ THINK” session, I addressed the issue of respect and all the various tangents of this important virtue, with emphasis on sexual decisions.
I will never ever forget the words of a senior girl who thanked me profusely for addressing the issues of sexual decisions and sexual abuse, and how I tied it into one’s own self-esteem and self-perception. A group of boys came up to me and hugged me, thanking me for openly dealing with the sexual issues and decisions that their dads never spoke to them about. Many of them mentioned that they did not know their dads or even have a dad to talk to them about being men. However, they enthusiastically gave me the “high fives” I requested as a promise and commitment to firstly respect themselves and respect females and their decisions, so as to reduce the incidents of sexual abuse and domestic violence in Jamaica.
I was indeed happy that I was able to debunk the popular local foolish myths of who a man really is, and deliver relevant information they needed. If left to themselves, these are the young men who possibly could have grown up to be adult sexual abusers, but I am so glad that they listened and decided to respect themselves and change. Way to go BB Coke Secondary School!!
So Jamaica, I too have to join my voice in sounding the alarm!! Stop kicking the issues under the carpet in an attempt to save your regional and international reputation and ratings while your baby girls are being hurt, abused and killed. The issue needs an immediate task force approach which will cross barriers and get into schools, churches, villages, on the blocks and on the radio to re-educate boys and men about sexual decisions while empowering the girls and women to love and protect themselves