The so­ci­ety is now in trau­ma over the ob­vi­ous bru­tal­i­ty to which two-year-old Aaliyah John­son was sub­ject­ed be­fore what must have been a death of pure agony. But we have walked this road be­fore with Akiel Cham­bers, Amy An­na­muntho­do, Josi­ah Gov­er­nor and dozens of oth­ers over the last decade and more. There seems to be no slow­ing down or change to the bru­tal­i­ty that at­tends the vi­o­lent and sex­u­al abuse of the chil­dren.

What is more, par­ents, rel­a­tives, neigh­bours, the po­lice, the courts, re­li­gious or­gan­i­sa­tions, gov­ern­ments, all seem help­less to bring an end to this in­hu­man­i­ty against the in­no­cent. Nonethe­less, the so­ci­ety-both as in­sti­tu­tions and as in­di­vid­u­als-must at­tempt to do a few ob­vi­ous but ne­glect­ed things.

One of them is a re­turn to the very suc­cess­ful com­mu­ni­ty polic­ing project which once ex­ist­ed. This method of en­cour­ag­ing pos­i­tive be­hav­iours in com­mu­ni­ties, and for po­lice of­fi­cers to be­come part of those pop­u­la­tion cen­tres, is a com­po­nent of the 21st-cen­tu­ry polic­ing ini­tia­tive, in that po­lice of­fi­cers are as­signed to pa­trol com­mu­ni­ties rather than re­main­ing aloof in po­lice sta­tions.

It is good to hear, too, from Min­is­ter Ver­na St Rose-Greaves that the Gov­ern­ment and the Op­po­si­tion are co-op­er­at­ing to pass the Chil­dren Bill in­to law, with all of the nec­es­sary el­e­ments and the in­sti­tu­tion­al frame­work to make the leg­is­la­tion ef­fec­tive. Pre­vi­ous and present gov­ern­ments have sought to make po­lit­i­cal mileage out of this nec­es­sary set of safe­guards against in­hu­man­i­ty to chil­dren.

A very im­por­tant ad­junct to the leg­isla­tive frame­work is that the Min­istry of the Peo­ple must launch a na­tion­al ed­u­ca­tion cam­paign. In­clud­ed in this aware­ness pro­gramme must be in­for­ma­tion to as­sist friends, neigh­bours, and teach­ers, even par­ents to recog­nise the signs that a child is be­ing abused in one form or the oth­er, and to un­der­stand what con­sti­tutes abuse.

As in many pre­vi­ous in­stances, one par­ent may be in­no­cent of what is tak­ing place, or in a po­si­tion of weak­ness, feel­ing in­ca­pable of do­ing any­thing about the abuse tak­ing place right in the home. In such in­stances, in­ter­ven­tion by friends, neigh­bours and close rel­a­tives is nec­es­sary to stem the abuse and bring it to the at­ten­tion of the po­lice-per­haps the com­mu­ni­ty po­lice.

Moth­ers es­pe­cial­ly of­ten feel them­selves trapped in a sit­u­a­tion in which they too are vic­tims of abuse and un­able to get around the crim­i­nal in the home who is per­pet­u­at­ing the phys­i­cal, emo­tion­al or sex­u­al abuse against the child. The com­mu­ni­ty must pro­vide as­sis­tance to such women boxed in­to vi­o­lent and abu­sive re­la­tion­ships.

Very of­ten in such re­la­tion­ships, the vic­tim, whether adult or child, has been led to be­lieve that the vi­o­lence or abuse is de­served, and thus may not even recog­nise it as abuse at all. This is why the vic­tim may nev­er ask for help, no mat­ter how bad it be­comes.

Non-gov­ern­men­tal or­gan­i­sa­tions, com­mu­ni­ty and re­li­gious groups can sure­ly en­gage in pro­duc­tive in­for­ma­tion and in­ter­ven­tion pro­grammes to turn this vi­o­lence around. Ul­ti­mate­ly, how­ev­er, there must be a dra­mat­ic change in the way par­ents treat with their chil­dren. That 180-de­gree change must start with the ed­u­ca­tion of young peo­ple in the pri­ma­ry, sec­ondary and ter­tiary-lev­el learn­ing in­sti­tu­tions, be­fore they them­selves be­come par­ents.

In ad­di­tion to teach­ing the aca­d­e­m­ic, tech­ni­cal, pro­fes­sion­al cur­ric­u­la, young peo­ple must be pos­i­tive­ly so­cialised in the home. The val­ue of hu­man re­la­tion­ships, and the way chil­dren should be treat­ed, cher­ished and pro­tect­ed are lessons that have not been suf­fi­cient­ly plant­ed in the cul­ture.

It is not enough, al­though very nec­es­sary, to de­pend on the crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem. That mere­ly metes out pun­ish­ment af­ter the fact, and such pun­ish­ment nev­er pre­vent­ed one child from be­ing abused.