Wanted: More accountability from OCR, CDA
It is a lesson that Mr Trump might not learn, but is a worthy endowment to Jamaican leaders, in all spheres, from a man who made an outstanding contribution to the Caribbean and Africa.
Black Mr Abrahams grew up poor in racist, white-minority South Africa. He worked in mines and on ships before moving to France and England, where he was part of the postwar anti-colonial ferment with the first generation of African and Caribbean leaders. They, at the time, were students in London. He was a writer and organiser.
Mr Abrahams moved to Jamaica in the 1950s. For a while, he edited the left-wing paper, Public Opinion, helped to launch the magazine, the West Indian Economist, and did incisive radio commentaries. When the Michael Manley administration brought Radio Jamaica into local ownership in the 1970s, Mr Abrahams was its first chairman.
His politics was of the left and his views clear and clearly stated. His novels told the large truths of his experiences. But Mr Abrahams never allowed his personal views to impair fact-based journalism. A large crowd gathers at the Capitol for the Women’s March on Jackson, Mississippi, as people across the nation rally in support of women’s rights on Saturday. THE EDITOR, Sir: DURING CLIFF Hughes’ show last Tuesday, a female caller expressed concerns about a seven-year-old girl who she believed was being sexually abused by the child’s uncle, and that she and her sister reported the matter to both the Office of the Children’s Registry (OCR) and the Child Development Agency (CDA) from about September last year.
She said that no action was taken to remove the child from the house four months after the report.
The CDA claimed that they visited the child’s address given by the complainant, but were unable to locate the child.
However, the Centre for Investigation of Sexual Offences and Child Abuse (CISOCA) found the child at the same address and arrested the alleged abuser the morning after the matter was aired.
What did CISOCA do differently in locating the child?
NOT ENOUGH
While I commend the State Minister of Youth, Floyd Green, for his timely intervention into this matter, and that plans are being fast-tracked to merge these two agencies, that is certainly not enough.
Strong measures of accountability should be implemented to ensure that the work of the OCR and the CDA is carried out with competency, because we depend on them to act in circumstances when our vulnerable children are in need of care and protection.
Until we begin to understand and accept the reality that we are all obligated to care for and to protect our children, child abusers will continue their dastardly acts of taking away the innocence of our future. DUJON RUSSELL dujon.russell@yahoo.com too, who have a natural fear for their lives and the safety of their friends and families.
Yes, they are scared too, but it’s faith in our Almighty God that keeps them pushing on.
NOT WAITING ON GOD
No real Christian is throwing their hands in the air and waiting on God to deliver them and not doing their part to secure their own safety and that of their friends and families. That would be foolish.
What they are doing is to secure themselves, their loved ones and their communities as best they can and relying on God to give them the wisdom, the courage, to face any eventuality that may occur and be able to take the appropriate actions necessary.
They rely on their faith in God to see them through their day-to-day activities, instead of cowering in fear like some people.
Don’t be misled into thinking Christians are only praying and laying back, expecting God to do everything.
You won’t always hear of what they’re doing because it’s not their style to advertise their many outreach programmes, guidance and counselling sessions.
It’s easy for you on the sidelines to form the wrong impressions and yes, not all who profess Christianity are Christians, as in everything, there are always to be found some wolves in sheep’s clothing. WAYNE JOHNS wayne.johns.wgs@gmail.com