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Our children are our future, it is often said. This is quite true because parents invest so much of their resources in raising their children so that they can lead better lives when they grow up. A�
The efforts of the family unit that seeks to ensure a better life for the next generation, replicated across a nation, ensure that there is progress for a whole country.
It is against this background that any cancer that gnaws at the family fabric alarms us and should elicit a wave of revulsion from society. We refer here to stories regarding children whose pictures have been doing the rounds on social media. The sickening pictures showed a scale of abuse that one would never have imagined could happen in our country.
We have heard shocking stories of rape even of toddlers by grown men, sexual abuse of many forms but the taking of pictures and videos has been something that was associated with developed countries where paedophiles are monitored so that they do not cause a lot of damage to society.
We need to adopt serious measures as well.
It would appear the abuse is happening even on a grand scale under our noses and that instead of burying our heads in the sand we have to gird our loins and confront this monster called child sexual abuse head-on.
There is a tendency among neighbours to mind their own business, this uncaring attitude of individualism that has very shallow roots in African culture, since we value community a lot, and community is basically an extension of family.
We are touched when families come together whenever there has been a tragedy such as death, and the vociferous nature of condemnation against perpetrators of abuse.
We are aware that in the heat of the moment, the community realises how endangered its children are and therefore tends to speak with one voice. We would like to urge the community not to wait for tragedy to strike but to work towards preventing such incidents from happening.
This can be done through always being on the lookout for curious behaviour by your neighbours, worrying sounds that might be screams or constant fights.
We sometimes silence our children when they tell us uncomfortable things that they learn from their friends from the neighbourhood.A� At times they are immediately barred from playing with such children altogether.A� However, such conduct could provide pointers to the kind of life next door and avert potential disaster if the correct interventions are made.
Ita��s better to be alarmist and report suspicious activity than having to live with the regret of having failed to act when you felt something was not right.
We believe that is how neighbours of the innocent abused little girls could be feeling now about not intervening even when they could tell from the childrena��s behaviour that something was not right.
In cases where the little children attend school, we are sure teachers at such levels are sufficiently equipped to detect behaviour associated with abuse.
Let us take action sooner rather than later. It is our hope and prayer that the monsters that abused the poor little souls are caught and put away into prison while the children will hopefully get the psychological help that they desperately need at this time. .
Online Reporter