Melville Cooke Straight prison from de bredda touch de 12-year-old
- Beenie Man
ON TUESDAY, for once The Gleaner and The Observer's front pages addressed the same issue that was not stock in the trade, like the budget or gas riots or machete massacres.
The Gleaner led with a story about a 15-year-old who was raped and killed in Montego Bay, St. James, while The Observer related Millwood's wish to get the police to keep an eye on the buses that seem to be a hotbed of sexual passion. With schoolgirls, naturally.
Carnal abuse and marital rape have been very much on the front-burner in Jamaica for the last couple weeks, especially with the story about Rita Marley and Bob Marley, The STAR carrying her explanation with the headline 'No Woman No Cry'.
THE PENALTY
I would like to look at the issue not from the perspective of the act, but the penalty. The penalty that the convicted paedophile pays in Jamaica - at least, the cases that I have read or heard about - is woefully inadequate.
Last week, Franklin McKnight's radio commentary was about a man who got a suspended sentence for molesting an 11-year-old. He discussed the sentence and the possible reasons that it was so relatively light, including sickness, before he revealed the age of the perpetrator. He was 74 years old. The judge was male.
Last week I related the story of a serial rapist, whose 30-year sentence was reduced on appeal, the male lawyer arguing that the man was a sick person in a sick society. The three appeal court judges were men.
This is not paedophilia, but it is relevant, nonetheless. Some years ago, a judge ordered a rape victim remanded in custody because she would not speak up in court. There was protest in front of the courthouse after The Gleaner carried the story on the front page, one placard reading 'Rape Reid instead'. The judge's name was Reid, naturally.
Then there was the priest from Italy who was caught with a young girl in Mandeville, who was not prosecuted but shipped back over to his home (defrocked). He did not even face the courts.
A LIGHT SENTENCE
When I hear about a light carnal abuse sentence, I automatically look at the name of the judge, to see if it is a man. I am yet to see a light carnal abuse sentence being handed down by a woman.
Which leads to me wonder if the male judge is inherently incapable of valuing a female enough, to sentence someone who has violated a girl, to many years in prison. (I, of course, recommend death, not prison.)
I do not know enough to be able to say if male judges are harsher on men who molest young boys.
The worst prejudice is the invisible one, which means the one without laws to enforce it, without batons to mark its presence on a skull, without bullets to sear the skin. I have to wonder if sexism is so endemic that a male judge in our Jamaican society cannot value females enough to be able to apply the penalty that is deserved.
Should we have female judges presiding over these cases? That in itself would seem to present its own problems. Or would it? The problem, on the face of it, would be objectivity, but why is it that we would inherently see a woman sentencing a paedophile as not being objective?
And that is more silent prejudice in itself.
Footnote: I have heard a few persons, all men, express the view that Mrs. Marley should not be bringing up the matter of Bob Marley forcing himself on her 30 years ago. But man bright eh? Who gives you the right to say what a woman should or should not say about her experience? It is her right, it is her body. The question should not even arise. Damn bright.
'Me no know how it a go
If de bredda touch me 10-year-old'
- Buju Banton
Melville Cooke is a
freelance writer.
