Hopefully when we’re through yet another episode of heightened public and political concern about the well-being of our children, T&T can buckle down and get really serious about the things that need to be done to make life better for this vulnerable group of humans. We have not been doing so!
The issue’s command of the news agenda will, as
is customary, vigorously persist then wane until another dramatic development
involving a child occurs. In the interim it will be back to official sloth, political
convenience, and diminished attention by some who currently lead cacophonies of
concern.
Though there is room for scrupulous criticism,
what we are facing today is not all about the filing and forgetting of the 1997
Task Force Report (Ramesh Deosaran reminded everybody about it in the Senate in
2002, by the way) or the December 2021 report on child abuse at children’s
homes.
It is not even about a lack of systemic
all-of-government support for an under-resourced, legislatively strapped Children’s
Authority which is just one element of a national child protection system involving
a host of other agencies.
Getting to the bottom of all this would strike
at the core of some deeply held beliefs and longstanding practices. Some
inconvenient truths about how we run this place.
Among its manifestations is that there is no
overwhelming preoccupation by the political class with any revolutionary change
in official attitudes toward the protection of our children.
No matter what they try to say now, politicians
past and present, have not done their best, however belated the expressions of regret.
Have not prioritised. Have not clung to the basic principles of the rights of
children. It’s not the only area in which we ritualistically drop the ball, but
one of the most important ones.
Even so, it would not be fair to declare all politicians
evil, cruel or indifferent to the cause. To do so would be to cast into the
fire generations of them. They also do not land from other planets. They were
born, grew up and live among us.
There is no doubt about general societal
concern and care. Though there is the net negative impact of some social habits
and beliefs (those associated with corporal punishment and religious coercion
for example) by and large, we are not a population of callous, uncaring people
when it comes to children.
I think the vast majority of private citizens
would do virtually anything to secure the well-being of their children. Civil
society elements have always been there to add support and to initiate projects
of their own spanning a variety of needs such as health, education and
learning, counselling and psychological support, recreation, and a host of
other goods and services.
So, I don’t necessarily agree that we have ALL
been complicit in this sorry state of affairs. However, there is the fact that
children and their rights are not always expressed as a priority across a
multiplicity of disciplines and concerns.
Some of us in the media have not been asleep on
this. Between 2015 and 2016, a team of regional journalists collaborated with
UNICEF, the CBU and the ACM in the publication of Our Children, Our Media – A
Guide for Caribbean Practitioners which was superbly edited by Barbadian
journalist, Julius Gittens.
This guide focuses extensively on the UN
Convention on the Rights of the Child and its meaning for the practice of
responsible journalism.
It was not an encounter of a first or second or
third kind for journalists. And while it is true that there has been
journalistic malpractice along the way there is now, by and large, greater awareness
of special obligations.
In the preface of Our Children, though, a note
from UNICEF claims that as many as 20% - 40% of children of the Eastern Caribbean
are subjected to sexual abuse.
It continues: “After the slogans wear away from
memory, the public service announcements stop running or the money for the next
campaign moves on to another pressing priority, will a problem that touches at
least one-fifth of the lives of those who watch, read and listen to our news
reports and programmes simply go away?”
I add: What happens to this now that the flooding
season has begun? I plan to post a reminder. People seem to forget very easily.
