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Dec 04, 2016 Editorial, Features / Columnists

All over Guyana, children are suffering. Many are poor and are left to fend for themselves because their parents do not have the resources to provide for them. Some will go to school without breakfast hoping to get a bite from their more fortunate friends. Others will abandon school and join gangs to engage in illegal activities in order to survive.
Indeed the government recognizes that there are the less fortunate in our midst so the government, some years ago, started the school feeding programme. Today that programme has been extended at a cost of millions of dollars to the Education Ministry.
Yet many children have lost their childhood innocence due to poverty and hardships. Almost every day, children are in the news; some have been accused of armed robbery, and others have committed murders or other crimes. The cold-blooded murder of 56-year-old Bibi Nesha Shairoon, a Mahaicony businesswoman, by a 14-year-old and a much older accomplice a few weeks ago is a case in point.
The mother of three was the owner of a small shop at the bottom of her house. Her decomposed body was found lying in a pool of blood in her bedroom with her feet and hands tied together. Her head had been bashed with a frying pan, allegedly by the 14-year-old, who was her neighbor. He is one of several schooldrop-outs who have turned to crime as a means of survival.
Governments past and present have come to the aid of abused and troubled children, but even then they seem not to have done enough. In some cases, they did not have enough trained staff to treat the psychological and emotional scars of children.
Some state-run child care centres such as the one in which the two brothers, Joshua and Antonio George, died last July 8 when fire gutted the building are understaffed.
It is said that children learn what they live and will act according to what they see in society. Many do not have role models and are vulnerable. They can be easily convinced by criminals to join gangs and commit crimes. Children as young as 14 years are arrested and incarcerated for murders, robbery, petty theft and other criminal offences.
Children are prone to make mistakes, therefore incarceration, even though seeming appropriate, should be the last option. Yet in no country has there been a substitute for incarceration. Having said that, the government has a responsibility to balance the rights of the child with its overriding objectives of maintaining order in society.
There is nothing wrong with the state locking up children for their misconduct but the State has to make sure that they are not placed in the same prison with hard core criminals. They should not be denied an education or forced to work in prison. Rather, they should be given counseling and a second chance.
Opportunities are lost whenever children are locked up in penal facilities. They should be placed in rehabilitation centres, counselled and treated for their deviant behaviour. Bureaucracy should not hinder the policies and laws meant to protect children. A nation that takes care of its children is a caring nation.
Children are the nation’s most precious jewels and when they are convicted of a crime, they should be shown leniency. They should not be denied their basic rights or treated like adult prisoners. This would be an indictment on all in society.

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