We can’t continue like this
Dear Editor,
Fourteen-year-old Yetanya Francis 0f Arnett Gardens, who had also been a student of Kingston Technical High School, was raped and brutally murdered by some heartless robots less than three weeks before her 15th birthday. She would have celebrated her birthday on September 8 — but that was not to be.
News of Yetanya’s gruesome death sent shock waves across her community and had the 14 parishes of the island talking about the ordeal with water in their eyes.
State minister in the Ministry of Education Floyd Green, Children’s Advocate Diahann Gordon-Harrison, the prime minister, and other public officials have come out and publicly condemned the actions of the ruthless aliens responsible for young Francis’s death. How can a county live like this?
In February, 14-year-old Tianna Clarke from the parish of St James was found dead in an abandoned building, and in June the body of nine-year-old Kadijah Saunders was found in bushes is Westmoreland.
Drought is upon us, the dams are next to empty, but the tears from the monument erected in Kingston for children murdered across the island is flowing like a broken water main.
How is it possible for a country to sleep, wake up, and continue another day like normal when a child’s life has been taken?
Do we still have neighbourhood watches? Are children still the future? Do cries for help go unheard? And if we hear them, do they mean anything to us?
We need to understand that it is not just the duty of child agencies and the police to provide care and protection, but all of us have a duty of care to our children. We should remember that the crime we turn a blind eye to today will cost us in funeral expenses tomorrow.
Condolence to Yetanya’s family.
Hezekan Bolton
h_e_z_e@hotmail.com