By GLEN TUCKER
In a letter to the editor

Many years ago, I attended an international conference.  At the end of the first day’s session, I was approached by the delegate from the Ukraine who was full of compliments about the way Jamaica takes care of its children.

“Have you been to Jamaica?” I asked, surprised at her comments.  “No” she replied, “…but you have an ambassador for children, AN AMBASSADOR FOR CHILDREN!” she said with excitement.  Then she added, “I know of no other country that takes the welfare of their children so seriously.”  I busied myself refreshing her drink. The nation is well and truly angry about Armadale.  Some think the top brass should be fired.  Others think they should not be fired.  My fear is they will be replaced and then it will be business as usual.  For the horrible conditions and the sadistic abuse have been going on for years and continue.  Many people have known this for many years and have said nothing.

Almost 200 years ago, the horrible conditions in the workhouses in Britain caused Charles Dickens to write the book Oliver Twist.  But even then, the children did not have to use their hands to eat and were not required to defecate on newspapers in cramped conditions and keep it till the next day. Separated from society in a ‘closed’ environment, children are desperately vulnerable.  Things have already gone badly wrong in their homes for them to end up in institutions.  These places should be welcoming, friendly homes away from home where their fractured lives can begin to heal.

This is a job for specially trained personnel.  What has been done to them is tantamount to a butcher being handed a dull axe and told to perform delicate surgery. Over the past two years, I have made five attempts to get these children’s agencies to intervene when I have observed children being the subject of continuing and excruciating abuse.  They have never acted.  So our children are damned if they are at home and damned if they at ‘Armadale’.

Many of the Artful Dodgers hide behind this ‘we had limited resources’ excuse.  We know that.  There will never be adequate resources for this purpose because children cannot vote!  Kindness, caring and compassion do not require one cent to be added to the budget.  These are what these poor wretched souls hunger and thirst after – more than food.  The problem I have is not just that these monsters always seem to end up around our children.  It is that this is the terrible way all of us seem to treat each other.  It is the same self-loathing, which causes half of us to use harsh chemicals to lighten our skin and the other half to explore subtler means of achieving the same objective that manifests itself in the cruelty perpetrated on these children.  For cruelty is a symptom, a sign that something is wrong spiritually and emotionally in a person.

The effect of cruelty on a child can have profound consequences in their adult lives.  I wonder how many of the cold killers we have terrorizing our country honed their mental skills in these ‘homes’.

The people are in no mood to trust the word of anyone in authority.  Not again.  I would therefore ask that the following be considered when remedial action is contemplated:
1.  Representatives of NGO’s should be given authority to make unscheduled visits — day or night — and be free to inspect, interview and advise wards.
2.   Strengthen the legislative framework to send a clear message to abusive or neglectful parents that Government is serious about the protection of children.  Mothers cannot father children and we must find and expose the ‘wuklis puppas’ — some of whom hold prominent positions in society.
3.  Check the qualifications of persons currently employed at these homes to ensure that they are not there simply because they have a friend in some influential position.

We need to understand that Armadale was inevitable because we, the people, did nothing about Agana (Barrett).