Child Beaten to Death Because He Ate Too Slowly

We must love our children, not hurt them. [OPINION]

The Jamaica Gleaner today reported that a four-year-old boy was beaten to death by his father-in-law with a stick because he ate too slowly. When the mother tried to intervene, she was beaten as well and suffered injuries. 

It was reported that minutes after the vicious attack, the father in law found the child breathing slowly, eventually becoming unresponsive. This four year boy was pronounced dead on arrival at the Spanish Town Hospital. 

If this does not make you angry, I don't know what will. This child was a human being. My gosh. Our children are more valuable than anything on this planet. No harm should come to them and the reaction to these harms must be met with a swift and harsh response.

As a society we must ensure that a safe avenue and environment is made available for children to speak out against abuse and to report their abuser/s. Our strength as a society is consolidated in government and therefore our Government has a mandate to protect the lives of our children.

Many will ask, "What can the Government do about child abuse?" This question is rooted in ignorance to the role government has played in society for the past 77 years. The education system is currently publicly run and owned. The School is one of the ways where outsiders can notice and identify abuse, and it is through that system that we should have been reaching out to the most vulnerable among us.

It stands to reason that if our representatives in Government choose to, they have the full power to treat child abuse and neglect as the epidemic that it is. They have the ability to place child psychologists in every school with a goal of identifying at risk children and those suffering from trauma of being abused or seeing abuse, then taking swift and decisive action. 

The children that have died, who continue to die today or who have died tomorrow, did not and do not need to die. They can live a full, prosperous, safe and fruitful life. But I find myself asking, what do we really want as a society, if we keep repeating the same mistakes over and over and over again?

My fellow Jamaicans, what do we expect to look forward to as a society, if we continue to let our children die?