Peter Espeut, in his regular column on the op-ed page of this newspaper, writes with passion and deep feeling about a matter which should shame Jamaica and cause those in authority to resolve that it won't happen again - to anyone.

Moreover, this situation demands accounting and accountability. We need to know who was responsible and why.

Espeut's story is about Jainaba Drammeh, a young Gambian woman, who was studying in Cuba and came to Jamaica last November to visit a friend. She left Jamaica for The Bahamas before the expiry of the period granted by immigration authorities for her to stay here. But for some reason, she was not allowed to land in The Bahamas and was sent back to Jamaica.

That experience, we expect, would have been traumatic enough for Ms. Drammeh. But what happened next would have been far worse, and far from what we often tell ourselves is the essence of Jamaican hospitality.

Instead of being allowed to reunite or contact her Jamaican host, Espeut reported, Ms. Drammeh was detained and thrown in jail for over five months - no habeas corpus; no contact with her friend; no contact with her university in Cuba; no contact with her family in The Gambia. For all anyone would have known, until she emerged from jail in May, Ms. Drammeh might have fallen off the face of the Earth, or worse.

Espeut suggests that Ms. Drammeh's treatment has something to do with the ambivalence of Jamaicans towards Africa and the blackness that is part of the majority of people who live here. We at once love and hate our Africanness, an argument with which we have great sympathy. So, a Caucasian detainee who found herself in immigration circumstances similar to Ms. Drammeh was sprung quickly.

But Ms. Drammeh's case is more than a psychosociological issue worthy of academic analysis. It is also a stark example of the failures of law enforcement and the delivery of justice, matters about which the society has been in a long, troubling and unresolved debate. For, truth be told, while the fact that Ms. Drammeh was a tourist adds poignancy to her story, her fate was not dissimilar to what is regularly endured by poor and, like Ms. Drammeh, black Jamaicans. There have been many reported cases in recent years of the poor being 'lost' in the system and held in jail for many years, primarily because of their socio-economic status.

It shouldn't be so. Indeed, those in authority will claim to empathise and to abhor such breaches of the law and of natural justice. The fact, however, is that, to say that such actions are not right is not good enough; they recur because people who misbehave in this fashion are not held accountable. There is no consistent process of accountability; those in authority mistake declarations for specific action.

While Jamaica resolves its psychosociological issues, egregious impingement of people's rights are best avoided by operating within a rules-based system - of law, justice and accountability.

In that context, we expect to hear of the investigation of this matter and of those who are held accountable and disciplined. Ms. Drammeh may decide to pursue legal action, but deserves a full apology and compensation. This is a matter of justice, not only for Ms. Drammeh, but for all of us.