FALMOUTH, Trelawny – Peoples National Party (PNP) councillor for the Ulster Spring Division in Trelawny Southern, Dr Pauline Foster has attributed Sunday’s murder of 29-year-old Nickiesha Keeling, allegedly by her jealous common-law husband who is more that twice her age, to the society turning of a blind eye to child abuse.

According to Dr Foster, based on information that emerged from Keeling’s brother Christopher Jack, his sister, at the age of 13, dropped out of high school after she became pregnant with the now-accused 62-year-old Stenneth Wilson’s child.

“It is child abuse because the murder that happened in Clark’s Town was set on a trajectory 16 years ago when that 13-year-old child was taken out of Muschett High School. I am not calling it any domestic partner violence because a 13-year-old cannot get into a domestic partner relationship. It is illegal in the island of Jamaica and I am calling on the conscience of the nation where women and men sell their daughters for a pot of food or a plate of food,” argued a passionate Foster.

“It don’t make sense we bawl out and give photo opportunity to these things and then remain silent. Where was the community and the upstanding men and women, and the church, and the JPs and the mothers and the fathers? Where were they when that girl was 13 years old? This cannot be a one-day thing, not a two-day thing.”

Foster, who was speaking during the monthly meeting of the Trelawny Municipal Corporation yesterday, argued that the nation cannot remain silent in the face of these egregious crimes perpetrated against the nation’s youth in a bid to dodge the ‘informer’ label.

“It has to be a situation where we must stop the foolishness about snitching, stop the foolishness about ‘It is not my business,’ and stop the foolishness that ‘Me come to drink milk and not to count cow.’We are killing our little boys who are being sodomised, killing our little girls – and is not the person that actually take up the tool, it is those of us who are in the society that know better but we keep quiet. What have we been doing when rape happens and we laugh and say ‘It is just a little sex’? “ Dr Foster questioned.

“Sometimes we keep quiet for our own reasons and as politicians we keep quiet because we don’t want that big yard no vote fi we; sometimes the Church keep quiet. Mr Chairman, it is time for it to stop. It is time. It is time.”

Chairman of the council, Councillor C Junior Gager, who agreed with Dr Foster’s pronouncements, urged individuals to walk away from abusive relationships.

“I encourage everyone to protect and love your women and children. I also encourage our women not to remain in abusive relationships that will threaten your lives. Please seek help from the police, your counsellor, or a trusted friend,” said Gager, the mayor of Falmouth.

PNP councillor for the Martha Brae Division, Phillip Service, in his contribution, called for an all out attack against child abuse.

“Whereas there is man and woman violence, what makes it worse is the fact that it is abuse of children. The truth is that the violence that manifests itself is just the end of a process.

“My view is that this is not a time for talk and pretty speeches. It is really an opportunity for us first of all to recognise that the problem exists, recognise that the problem exists everywhere,” Service argued.

According to the police, about 1:30 am Sunday the 62-year-old alleged machete-wielder was held after he turned up at the Clark’s Town Police Station. He reportedly told the police that he had murdered Keeling at their home in Parnassus, Clark’s Town.

The police visited the scene and found the body with multiple chop wounds, slumped in the house which the common-law couple shared.

Superintendent Carlos Russell, commander of the Trelawny Police Division, who joined the monthly council meeting virtually, said half of the six murder victims in the parish since the start of the year are females.

“Unfortunately the murder of Miss Keeling would have been the third female killed in the parish since the start of this year so it does highlight our situation,” Russell stated.

“As it relates to that matter, Mr Kenneth Wilson was officially charged for murder and he is to appear in court soon,” he said.