Glenda Simms
These recent horrific sexual violation and killings of two 11-year-old children and a nine-month-old is just a horrendous blip in the ongoing sexual exploitation of Jamaican women and children. There have been other terrible incidents that caused raised eyebrows in the parlours of the nation. The vast majority of these atrocities fell into the nine-day wonder syndrome.
A case in point is a story based on the investigation of Coralee Gowie, a journalist who writes for the local weekly, The Sunday Herald.
In the October 28 to November 3, 2007 edition of this newspaper, Gowie detailed the most disturbing and violent description of the continuous rape of a nine-year-old girl by a group of men ranging in ages from 12 to 50 years. It is less than a year since this story was written and a level of outrage must have been felt by a few people in the society at that time.
The October 2, 2008 edition of The Gleaner captured the political response to a short period in the Jamaican criminal landscape that saw the most horrific sexual assault and murders of a boy, a girl and a baby boy.
The faces of the two female politicians who responded were framed by the bold headline 'Outraged'. According to Arthur Hall, senior staff reporter of the newspaper, 'Babsy' Grange, whose portfolio responsibility include women's affairs "was obviously stung by the recent fatal attacks on at least four children, was almost in tears as she voiced her concerns".
Opposition Member of Parliament Lisa Hanna, who is the spokesperson on youth affairs, "expressed horror at what she described as the barbaric attack on children".
Current outrage
Reportedly, the Office of the Children's Advocate felt the urgent need to call "for more inter-agency collaboration to ensure the safety of children, especially those whose parents are detained or sent to prison".
Kevin O'Brien Chang, on one of the morning talk shows, advocated for the arrest of men who commit carnal abuse. I am supportive of his point of view. If all the big men, fathers, uncles and casual acquaintances who routinely impregnate little girls were forced to face the justice system to answer to their criminal activities, we will create a society where women and girls feel that their human rights are protected by the State.
The current outrage that is felt by the politicians on both sides of the Jamaican Parliament needs to be harnessed in a concerted bi-partisan effort to create bold revolutionary interventions to ensure that the nation state is never culpable in any of these horrific cases of abuse to our children.
In this vein, a great opportunity is presented for the government to use the brutal sodomising and murder of an innocent baby boy to ask critical questions about the management of the welfare of children who are born to incarcerated women in the women's prison.
Frighteningly, the bold headline in the October 6, 2008 edition of the Daily Observer screamed 723 kids missing. These children according to writer Karyl Walker are among the 1,112 persons who have been reported missing. This means that more Jamaican children than adults have gone missing in less than a year.
Most vulnerable sex
Children must be afforded the right to enjoy a positive childhood.
It is instinctive to note that according to Walker, "the police say the majority of youngsters who go missing are girls who often run away from home only to be found holed up with a male partner". This situation continues to inform the society that the girl child continues to be the most vulnerable and sexually victimised sector of the Jamaican population.
The reasons for the targeting and sexual exploitation of young girls and women in this society are the same as those that affect the female population of the entire patriarchal world.
Prime Minister Bruce Golding has announced a task force to report within a week on these issues and to propose strategies to effectively deal with the scourge of violence against children.
Global level
As the nation holds its breath to get the report of yet another task force, we need to be reminded that at the global level the United Nations secretary general had commissioned a study on Violence Against Children and subsequently published a booklet titled From Invisible to Indivisible: Promoting and Protecting the Right of the Girl Child to be Free from Violence.
This publication underlined the need for addressing forcefully and transparently the gender dimension of the continuing violence against children. It emphasises that we take into account the different risks facing girls and boys. Within this framework, no lasting solutions to the scourge of violence against children can be achieved without the protection of the human rights of women and girls.
The secretary general's study spoke to the following key realities that must direct governments' action in dealing with violence against children:
1. Every girl and boy must be afforded the right to enjoy a positive, safe environment during their childhood in order to achieve their full potential at all levels of their life cycle.
2. Structural and other causes in all societies make violence against girls a gendered phenomenon - this makes the elimination of violence against girls very difficult.
3. Acts of violence against women and girls are both an expression of and a way to reinforce male domination.
4. Acts of violence against women and girls reflect the specificities of different cultures and traditions. These include son preference; early marriages and early sexual initiation of virgins in order to reinforce the objectification of the female and to reinforce the myth that sex with virgins can cure men of the various sexually transmitted diseases; honour crimes; female genital mutilation; and intimate-partner violence.
Addressing the specifics
In order to address the specificities of the different societies, the secretary general's study emphasises that all governments need to address the following sites of violence against children and women:
The home in which incest and intimate-partner violence are featured.
Sexual violence against girls in schools, colleges and universities.
Violence against girls in the community.
Violence against girls in care and justice systems.
Violence against women and girls in work settings, religious institutions and public arenas.
The linkage between violence against women and girls and human trafficking, prostitution and the appetite for pornography.
It is against this universal framework that the current expression of outrage against violence against children in the Jamaican society must be understood.
Prime Minister Bruce Golding must insist that his latest task force produce a plan of action that is articulated in a gender analytic framework. If this is not done, the task force should be sent back to the drawing board.
Indeed, violence is never gender neutral. In the words of Professor Paulo Pinheiro, an independent expert for the secretary general's study on Violence against Children, "The study on Violence against Children recognises that virtually all forms of violence are linked to entrenched gender roles and inequalities, and that the violation of the rights of children is closely linked to the status of women."
Dr Glenda P. Simms is a gender consultant. Feedback may be sent to columns@gleanerjm.com.
