“We almost behave like animals, animals without conscience,” is what Magistrate Tiyani Behanzin has branded parents who subject their children to sexual abuse for financial compensation.
The magistrate was at the time presenting a lecture on the legacy of his father Rosie Douglas on Friday evening.
“In the courts, there are women, there are families that prosecute their children…. There are those of us whose children are abused and we take money from their abusers,” he said.
“It’s a stain and it talks about our level of consciousness as human beings let alone Dominicans. It seems to me that what we need to do is to make sure that we build institutions so that those institutions permeate the importance of them…” he said.
The parents are as guilty as the rapists when they settle for a few buck or favors in return for child abuse. They should be jailed. When the law is broken then let justice take its course. Rape and child abuse rub kids of their dignity and scars them for life. Oh JAH help my countrymen emancipate themselves from mental slavery…
At last someone is prepared to say what most Dominicans are thinking. So called parents who prefer the dollar to their childs mental and well being are animals. Poverty is no excuse for selling your child. All sex offenders should be registered with the police so that there where abouts are allways known, There is something seriously wrong with a man who sexually abuses a child.
If this practise is allowed to go on, it will be today someone elses child, and tomorrow yours. I bet these men will be looking for justice if it happened to their child.
Wake up Dominicans. We want to be standing with the more advanced islands and yet we behave like ignorant fools.
Remember todays children are tomorrows future. Sort out is sick and vile problem or we will end up with a generation of disturbed, violent adults.
@Anonymous:
I think that he is quite sure that we are humans. But he is pointing out that though we are humans, quite a few of us act like animals; for as human beings we ought to have a conscience, which the lower animals–domestic and wild–do not have.
I do not quite follow with the point that he is making at the moment, since this article looks like only part of his statement. But I cannot disagree with him, that too many of us, human beings, act like we do not have a conscience. That attitude was well displayed in Dominica during the last week of September.
@Anonymous: you must be a labourite because you so afraid of this man you know he is a fret to your god skerrit
Muslims chop off the hands of children under their cruel laws.
Sir, when you allow the public to cloud your judgement tell me how can you effectively deliver a ruling without fear.
Mr. Douglas sir, I am in no way condoning the actions of these parents sir but sometimes you just need to shut up and wait to deal with these matters when they reach before your courts.
Sir, please take your feet up your rear, get off your high horse and do not attempt to use similes to describe people who do not know better.
You seem to know the law books so well yet in Biology 101 you forgot that we are actually humans. Hence, the way some of us act.
Hence we need to go back to the lawmakers again. There should be a law that says that if there is enough evidence or a credible witness, the parents has no jurisdiction. Too many times it is a known fact that children are abused and the parents or the community shut up about it. When you have a 12, 13, or 14 year old pregnant, find out who the father is and send him to jail. The baby is enough evidence.