Diamond A. Buchanan | Dabuchanan0325@gmail.com
August 4, 2026 | Kingston, Jamaica
Reading about the children in Jamaica whose lives have been tragically cut short by viscous animals who happened to be classified as humans will never cease to both anger and radicalize me. If you search up the phrase "child in Jamaica who was assaulted and killed" in any search engine, the plethora of articles that pop up SHOULD bring anyone to tears.
The newest story on the block seems to be the saga of the 10 year old girl who was raped and murdered in Trelawny back in July of this year. She was found partially nude with her throat slashed on a dirt track in bushes, her name is Shani Coke. When the news hit all the local newspapers the shock and horror it came with was unfortunately not as morbid as it should be.
Instead all the horror was preserved when I open the comments section on one of the story post to read peoples opinions on the matter. I could not believe that there were people blaming the guardians of the child for her murder or even worst, blaming the deceased for her untimely demise. Apparently in their opinion the child should not have been outside in the first place and blame her guardians for putting her in harms way.
The blame when a child is kidnapped and raped and killed always seems to rest wrongfully on the parents. We have created a society in which we aim to pull back and protect children by oppressing them rather than dealing with the fact that the predators are the problem. The only way we can truly protect children is by ridding ourselves of the very element that preys on them in the first place.
Putting children into cages to keep them safe is never a viable option because it is an unhealthy way of raising the next generation, gone were the days where children would be allowed to roam and walk the streets, playing games and being able to socialize with their peers. Now we have asocial, antisocial and morbidly obese children in society because we coop them up instead of nipping the actual problem in the bud. When you get near the young of a wild animal, majority of the time the mother attacks the element that is threatening her baby, rarely does she feature any anger towards the child. Why do we operate differently as humans who claim to be an intelligent species. When are we as a society going to stop blaming little girls who are being taken advantage and start blaming grown men who should know that what they are doing is wrong. It cannot be that we are so quick to blame the parents and guardians and even the child before the rest the blame at the foot of the actual predator.
Its time we start holding the predatory cousins, uncles, grandfathers and even fathers accountable for being attracted to young girls. There is no grown adult out there who should have the ability to be attracted to a child. These individuals need to be purge from society like dangerous diseases such as polio, Ebola and many other infectious deadly diseases. These individual are even worst than these diseases simply for the fact that they seem to operate the same but somehow they have more rights and are less frown upon than the actual disease. Unfortunately there is no cure for these individuals other than the obvious course of action which is to get rid of them completely from the society.
Another issue to tackle is the practice of labeling victims who happen to be mostly girl children, as "force ripe" or having the sentiment that both the child and the grown man is wrong. There is no "force ripe" child that can catch the attention of a grown man who wasn't a predator in the first place. Believe it or not, children are very vain beings and will say and behave in ways that are not acceptable in modern society and that is why they have adults to guide them and teach them right from wrong.
If you do not like or indulge in certain activities, no matter how much a person tries to get you to partake in it, you will refuse and the same goes for engaging in sexual acts with children. If it is truly something you do not want to do, a child cannot coerce you into doing it. Secondly, the prevalence of persons somehow assessing the situation as the fault should be placed on both the predator and the victim is as backwards and dangerous as labeling the child as force ripe. There is no reality where someone who is being taken advantage of should be blamed alongside the person who is harming them.