From 'yaad' to Back Road

Glenda Simms, Contributor

The glaring headline, 'Teen sex slaves', reported by Enterprise Reporter Tyrone Reid in the September 25 edition of The Sunday Gleaner, was both shocking and extremely revealing. The article brings into sharp focus the following information:

The illegal sex trade is thriving and deeply entrenched along the Port Henderson Road in Portmore.

The mayor of Portmore, Keith Hinds, has appealed to the commissioner of police to intervene and rescue underage girls who are being lured from rural Jamaica into a life of prostitution on the infamous 'Back Road' of his town.

Mayor Hinds asserts that he is aware that many young girls who are reported missing end up on Port Henderson Road.

Mayor Hinds and other informants have reported that these young girls are controlled by pimps who enslave them and take all the financial gains from their illegal and forced entrapment.

The Reid story also informs the Jamaican public that law-enforcement personnel are a significant part of this social problem because, in or out of uniform, they are overtly involved in the sexual exploitation of underage teens who engage in prostitution along the Port Henderson strip.

If this is factual, we will get a better understanding of the need to confront all the systemic barriers that continue to force women and girls into the danger zones of the Jamaican society.

Frightening fact

It is frightening to acknowledge that this state of affairs can exist after decades of agitation for the protection of the human rights of women and girls in this island.

The Jamaican Government has ratified and periodically reports to the responsible authority of the United Nations its progress on the requirements of the Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women.

Article 6 of this human-rights treaty requires that our nation state "take all appropriate measures, including legislation, to suppress all forms of traffic in women and exploitation of prostitution of women".

Jamaica has indeed put in place the legislative framework to deal with both human trafficking and the exploitation of women and girls through prostitution.

The Sexual Offences Act of 2009 speaks to all angles of such exploitation. The act provides for the prosecution of anyone who abducts a child with the intent to have sexual intercourse with him or her. It also criminalises the sexual grooming of a child under age 16 for the purpose of sexual activity.

Furthermore, the act defines adulthood as the period over the age of 18 and childhood as the period under 18 years.

The act also provides for the prosecution of parents, relatives or guardians who involve children in prostitution and trafficking. In the same vein, those who operate houses of prostitution must be charged as criminals.

Of course, the pimps and other exploiters of women and girls must not be spared under the clear guidelines of the 2009 Sexual Offences Act.

No one is accountable

Further perusal of the issues raised by Mayor Hinds clearly points to the fact that Jamaica is not short on legislation. The problem lies in the reality that justice is denied many of our citizens because no one is being held accountable when the laws of the land are not implemented. If it is true that policemen frequent Back Road, not to ensure that laws are not broken but to enjoy the sexual offerings of underage prostitutes, the State must be held accountable.

Such policemen are agents of the State!

Perhaps it is coincidental, but it is instructive to note that in the same edition of The Sunday Gleaner, Anastasia Cunningham reported on Minister of Justice Delroy Chuck's assertion that the police are often abusing the rights of the poor and the vulnerable.

The minister's reference point was the situation in which the police arbitrarily detain young men from the inner city on suspicion of criminality.

Hopefully, the minister will be briefed on the concerns raised by Mayor Hinds and, in his next speech to civil-society groups, he will include the plight of poor, vulnerable rural girls who are reportedly being abused by pimps, johns, parents, agents of the State, and other exploiters who have learnt to undervalue the women and girls of Jamaica.

This sordid story of the enslavement of underage girls in the sexual morass of Back Road in Portmore emphasises the need for the country to put greater targeted emphasis on eradicating both internal and cross-border trafficking in persons as a first step to deal effectively with the sexual exploitation of women and girls.

The current plans are not working!

Antecedents

History reminds us that modern-day trafficking in human beings is an extension of practices rooted in most Western societies.

As early as 1899, an international conference on the 'white slave trade' was convened in England, and the participants at that gathering decided that they would do everything possible to protect the vulnerable against the practice of trafficking.

In spite of such good intentions, trafficking in person for the sex trade and for cheap labour continues throughout the world.

Here in Jamaica, we cannot afford to forget the trafficking of our ancestors as free labourers and prostitutes against our will, across the notorious Middle Passage. We cannot continue to slip into societal amnesia and ignore the drivers of the modern-day slave trade - extreme poverty, the lack of skills and education, low self-esteem, poor parenting, father absence, childhood sexual abuse, and the perpetuation of patriarchal values that commodify the female body and render far too many young women dependent on men to validate their 'womanself'.

We need to address these issues in immediate and concrete ways, and in the case of prostitution we need to rethink our notions about the world's oldest profession for some adult women. In fact, if we continue to misinterpret the role of the "whores in history", we will, in the words of former prostitute and writer Nickie Roberts, continue to pass on to our daughters the subtle message that they are the property of men.

Indeed, it is against this belief system that our social, economic and political systems are complicit in presiding over an educational sector that renders far too many young, rural girls unskilled, undereducated, miseducated and vulnerable to their mothers and other relatives who turn a blind eye as they put them on the path from 'yaad' to Back Road.

Glenda P. Simms, PhD, is a gender expert and consultant. Email feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com and glendasimms@gmail.com.