Help the handcart man, don’t beat him up

THE EDITOR, Madam:

Outside of the statutory laws of the land, there are municipal rules, regulations, and measures instituted to restrain indiscipline within communities that are subjected to not more than a warning, fine, or sanction.

Europeans appreciate that citizens, to make a living, are forced to operate outside of the municipal rules and regulations. In one such nation, formerly, street prostitution was illegal, so the government, knowing the trade is inescapable and hard to police, created a space for its pursuit. That nation also has laws against street vending, so in order for potential vendors to not break the law, they created occasions for licensed but orderly street vending.

Here, we are seeing an increase in skirmishes between the municipal police and handcart vendors across the island. The visuals of the rage of an officer of the municipality as he minced a handcart outside the iconic Linstead Market show none of the milk of human kindness required.

In Falmouth, recently, a scuffle between that municipality and a handcart man resulted in the latter almost losing two fingers. In Montego Bay, the mayor is moving towards seizing handcarts. We are dealing here with humans – those at the bottom of the economic scale, the breadwinners of their families – and, particularly, as COVID-19 decimates the Jamaican economy and makes destitute a large swathe of citizens.

I am suggesting that business handcarts be listed, numbered by the municipalities but not licensed. And, as they earn a living, as is done in Europe, assist them to not break the law by providing designated areas to conduct their vending. A concerned minister of local government should not only help the handcart men to make a permitted living but also ask his front-line agents not mash up the carts and beat up these high-risk Jamaicans.

CLAUDE WILSON