It was very heart­en­ing to wit­ness two dis­plays of jus­tice be­ing served. The first was Ms Jen­nifer Lal­man be­ing pe­nalised for hit­ting her grand­daugh­ter with a swiz­zle stick on her head and a fa­ther sen­tenced to serve over 20years for sex­u­al in­ter­course with his daugh­ter. They will def­i­nite­ly en­joy the hos­pi­tal­i­ty of our pris­ons in Arou­ca. Abuse of chil­dren whether phys­i­cal, psy­cho­log­i­cal, in what­ev­er form should not be tol­er­at­ed at all. Chil­dren do need dis­ci­pline but it does not need to bor­der on rage and vi­o­lence to be in­flict­ed on the poor souls. The scars of child abuse takes years to heal.

The wounds re­main in­to adult­hood. I wish the mag­is­trate had im­posed a harsh­er pun­ish­ment on this woman. I guess in the opin­ion of the court, her heart was in the right place but her mind was pos­sessed by un­holy spir­its. Hence the rea­son to join Al­co­holic Anony­mous ses­sions. Chil­dren have the right to a warm, lov­ing and car­ing en­vi­ron­ment. As adults we need to show them the beau­ty and hu­man­i­ty that they poss­es in­side. Our abil­i­ty to act as their par­ents, guardians, friends and men­tors is what will ush­er in the next gen­er­a­tion of in­tel­li­gent and re­spon­si­ble cit­i­zens. The Gov­ern­ment and all stake­hold­ers should pass stronger laws and reg­u­la­tions to em­pow­er so­cial work­ers and the courts more ef­fec­tive­ly in cur­tail­ing the con­tin­u­ous as­saults on our na­tion's fu­ture.

Mark Her­nan­dez

Via e-mail