Hold the public celebration!
Dear Editor,
As Jamaicans, we think that acknowledging one’s good deed is the way to go, but at times this acknowledgement could ruin the future of ‘the greater good’.
On October 21, 2019 the Registrar General’s Department (RGD), as well as friends and family of Tamar Blake must have been overjoyed to see Blake receiving the Badge of Honour for Gallantry for an act of courage and bravery for the safe return of Sae’breon Hutton, who had been abducted from Victoria Jubilee Hospital.
While Baby Hutton is now safe at home and Blake is now being viewed as a hero, my question is what about Baby Nyyear Frank and the approximately 10 per cent of the nation’s children who remain missing each year, according to data published on Jamaica’s Office of the Children’s Registry website. Don’t they deserve to be reunited with their families, too, by all means possible?
The probability of abducted babies like Nyyear Frank being reunited with their families through the RGD or any other government agency has now been decreased. Jamaican criminals are not stupid. Blake’s story has been published by almost every media house, and in Jamaica we have the saying “once bitten, twice shy”. Therefore, baby abductors will now be more cautious.
Policymakers and elected officials ought to be much wiser in order for Jamaica to triumph over our main adversary, which is crime. Blake could have been recognised otherwise. Her story did not have to be so publicised. Had they not publicised her story we could say that authorities were thinking about the greater good. Greater good would mean that the RGD, through its registration process, would recover more babies. Now, it is highly unlikely that abducted babies will be recovered through the RGD’s registration process.
As stakeholders, there is no problem in sharing the good news that an abducted baby has been recovered, but the medium through which the recovery was made, in my opinion, should not be disclosed. In so doing, the various avenues through which crimes can be solved may be closed.
Daneish Allen
daneishallen@yahoo.com
