We've long stopped denying the increase of young people committing crimes. But what about the exploitation of children going on in our country? What about parents who exploit their children sexually? How can our young people be better when the ones who care for them are sometimes the ones causing the most harm?
I was appalled in April when I read an article about a mother sentenced for helping her common law husband rape her daughter. What kind of Jamaica are we living in when not even the mothers are protecting their children? The common law husband absconded and was still on the run when this article was published in The Gleaner. But the sentence was disappointing. Two years isn't nearly enough time for the damage she's inflicted.
When parents allow harm to come to their children for personal gain they need to face the harshest of consequences before the courts. In the April 18, 2008 issue of Chat, there was an article about Wilfred Parker and Eunice Gordon-Bryan (parents of a thirteen-year old girl) each receiving a sentence of sixty days in jail. I'm glad that such attention has been paid to their crime. Too many times I've heard about parents taking money or other benefits when their child is impregnated by an adult without consequences.
The incident was discovered after the authorities found the runaway teen with a four day old baby. When it was discovered to be hers, she was taken in and her parents arrested. The teen had been impregnated by a nineteen year old man and her parents decided not to report it because he promised to support the child. The fact that any parent would take any "support" over reporting an adult committing statutory rape on their child is disturbing. I applaud the RM for sentencing them for their slackness. This needs to be a regular trend. An arrest warrant was also prepared for the nineteen-year old.
Don't get me wrong, not all parents are bad. But these "bad egg" parents aren't helping to lessen the problems and pressures facing children today. So I ask the parents who are exploiting their kids to stop it and for the law to put in place tougher sentences upon those who are caught.
