Pavi­t­ra Ramharack

Singing San­dra died in 2021. I was a child when she sang Die With My Dig­ni­ty, but grow­ing up, my moth­er con­tin­u­ous­ly re­mind­ed me of the lyrics, in par­tic­u­lar the line that res­onat­ed most with her, “Broth­er they could keep their mon­ey, I go keep my hon­ey, and die with my dig­ni­ty”.

You see, my moth­er un­der­stood how eas­i­ly women and young girls could be sex­u­al­ly ex­ploit­ed for jobs, op­por­tu­ni­ties and mon­ey. Sex­u­al ex­ploita­tion still lives with us in our every­day lives. Some of us fight against it, some sim­ply ac­cept it as a nec­es­sary evil and some of us choose to ig­nore it.

The re­al­i­ty of it took our coun­try by storm this last week. We be­came aware of a young girl, clear­ly tal­ent­ed, us­ing vo­cals that can cer­tain­ly open doors, ap­pear­ing in a video and singing a song.

The song, the mes­sage and the video were not things a par­ent would want their child to think, con­sid­er or be sub­ject­ed to, es­pe­cial­ly at that age.

In an in­ter­view, her moth­er said, “When she was singing pos­i­tive songs no­body didn’t want to hear, so she put her hands on this and re­al­ly got all the pub­lic­i­ty it need­ed.”

I agree. I had no idea who the tal­ent­ed young la­dy was un­til the court of pub­lic opin­ion ex­plod­ed. I did not ap­pre­ci­ate the lyrics any more than most who were quick with their opin­ions.

As a per­son who sup­ports and ad­vo­cates for chil­dren, it dis­turbed me on many lev­els. But what I can­not de­ny is how quick­ly her name and video were shared, whether we were in favour of it or not.

What we are re­fus­ing to ac­knowl­edge is that sex sells. We are all aware of this, yet we refuse to ac­knowl­edge it.

While it is not a de­fence, the moth­er was right: the sex­u­al­i­sa­tion of a mi­nor gains much more likes, re­views and com­ments than clean, whole­some, fam­i­ly lyrics. But the peo­ple who are mak­ing these videos pop­u­lar, who are pur­chas­ing, en­cour­ag­ing and en­joy­ing the sex­u­al ex­ploita­tion of young peo­ple, go un­no­ticed and un­rep­ri­mand­ed.

At this junc­ture, we may need to con­sid­er ed­u­cat­ing our­selves on sex­u­al groom­ing. Sex­u­al groom­ing has been de­fined as a ma­nip­u­la­tive process, one which in­volves gain­ing the trust of or build­ing a re­la­tion­ship be­tween a mi­nor and a per­pe­tra­tor. In gain­ing the trust of the mi­nor, the per­pe­tra­tor al­lows the mi­nor to low­er their in­hi­bi­tions and be­come more sus­cep­ti­ble to sex­u­al abuse. It should be not­ed that to be charged with sex­u­al groom­ing, phys­i­cal sex­u­al con­tact be­tween the mi­nor and per­pe­tra­tor is not nec­es­sary.

Should a per­son meet with or com­mu­ni­cate with a mi­nor, via any means, in­clud­ing the In­ter­net, for the pur­pos­es of sex­u­al groom­ing and then arrange to meet the mi­nor with the in­ten­tion of do­ing any­thing of a sex­u­al na­ture, ei­ther at that meet­ing or there­after, they can be charged.

There are var­i­ous warn­ing signs that a mi­nor may be the tar­get of sex­u­al groom­ing. This in­cludes re­la­tion­ships with old­er per­sons, knowl­edge of sex that is in­ap­pro­pri­ate for their age and spend­ing con­sid­er­able time alone or away from home.

Un­for­tu­nate­ly, the so­ci­ety our chil­dren is now sub­ject­ed to has cre­at­ed an en­vi­ron­ment ripe for sex­u­al groom­ing. Mi­nors now have the world at their fin­ger­tips. Ac­cess to smart de­vices, which al­lows un­lim­it­ed ac­cess to so­cial me­dia. How many par­ents ac­tu­al­ly know who their chil­dren are talk­ing to or who their on­line friends are?

Par­ents who be­lieve that by check­ing smart de­vices reg­u­lar­ly, they are pre­vent­ing cer­tain forms of com­mu­ni­ca­tion are fool­ing them­selves. How many par­ents are aware of hid­den fold­ers or pro­files that car­ry a pseu­do­nym or alias?

Mi­nors are smarter than they are giv­en cred­it for.

The avail­abil­i­ty of mu­sic, movies, reels and books with sex­u­al con­tent means mi­nors are more sex­u­al­ly ex­posed than we care to ad­mit. Imag­ine, for in­stance, a mi­nor singing a sex­u­al­ly ex­plic­it song. It im­me­di­ate­ly gives the im­pres­sion of some­one fa­mil­iar with the acts be­ing sung or even hav­ing some sex­u­al knowl­edge that can be ma­nip­u­lat­ed and used for sex­u­al groom­ing.

In lis­ten­ing to the de­bate con­cern­ing the song, there was a di­vide be­tween those who strong­ly con­demned and those who wished to ac­knowl­edge tal­ent. I cer­tain­ly ac­knowl­edge the tal­ent. But, in ac­knowl­edg­ing tal­ent, one has to be cog­nisant of the slip­pery slope we are now tra­vers­ing with our chil­dren.

Per­haps the par­ent is right in con­tend­ing that while the lyrics may be what they are, the mi­nor in ques­tion isn’t talk­ing about her­self, so the par­ents have noth­ing to wor­ry about.

Do we re­al­ly have noth­ing to wor­ry about? In a world filled with peo­ple who are prone to wear­ing masks, do we tru­ly know who a preda­tor is? The mi­nor, un­for­tu­nate­ly, is now ex­posed to sex­u­al preda­tors on a larg­er scale. What hap­pens when some­one be­lieves it may be easy to ma­nip­u­late this child us­ing record deals or the promise of a brighter ca­reer in the in­dus­try? Has one video left a trail of crumbs straight to an in­no­cent mi­nor’s door.

I can ap­pre­ci­ate want­i­ng to be recog­nised for your tal­ent. There are many peo­ple in many walks of life who are ex­cel­lent at what they do, but sad­ly will nev­er be able to be recog­nised for their tal­ent and abil­i­ty.

Much like Singing San­dra tried to teach us all those years ago, which is of more im­por­tance, our dig­ni­ty or some­thing else? An adult can de­cide. A mi­nor ought to be pro­tect­ed. Was it re­al­ly just a song or an in­di­ca­tion of the lack of pro­tec­tion and aware­ness where our mi­nors are con­cerned?

Pavi­t­ra Ramharack is head of cham­bers at Pavi­t­ra Ramharack At­tor­neys at Law and can be reached at ramharack_pavi­t­ra@out­look.com