The collusion of adults in the population in the early sexualisation and the related levels of abuse against children has been raised in many societies. The time has come for the spectre of lost childhood as a developmental blockage to be confronted.

For instance, the September 19, 2008, edition of the Edmonton Journal carried an article by writer Robin Summerfield, entitled "Sex Sells ... even to children". This article shared with readers the concerns raised by Jean Kilbourne, the author of a new book, So Sexy So soon: The New Sexualised Childhood and What Parents Can do to protect their kids.

In this article, the impact of media on teens and children was the focus of the themes covered by the author, who pointed to the problem of how the profit-seeking conglomerates and fashion houses deliberately target youngsters as consumers of the sleazy side of what is now called popular culture.

It was also pointed out that besides being promoted as consumers of miniskirts, which reveal rather than cover up the most private of private parts, thongs for teeny-boppers and bikinis for babes, "children are also exposed to adult themes of sex and sexuality earlier and earlier".

fulfil promises

Paula Sergio Pinhero, who was responsible for compiling the 2006 United Nations World Report on Violence against Children, concluded his introductory remarks in this publication with the caution that "children are tired of being told they are the future". They want to see us fulfil our pro-mises in the present so that they can enjoy their right to be protected from violence today.

This message needs to be shouted loud and clear by the children of Jamaica, because they can no longer trust the adults to free them from the atrocities that so many of them confront on a regular basis.

Indeed it is clear, from the responses of those being paid from the public purse to protect children, that it is easy to spout rhetoric about how we love our children and that parents need to make sacrifices to protect the little ones, and so on and so forth.

'chattering heads'

We have yet to see these 'chattering heads' take decisive legal actions against television and radio conglomerates, which contaminate young children's minds with the overtly sexual content of their programming, music-production houses that flood the airwaves with lyrics of hatred against women and girls, and video producers who continue to think up new and innovative ways of bombarding the world of the child with sleaze in cyberspace.

It is within this framework that I raise the latest form of attack on children's human rights. This one is disguised as entertainment and a form of child play.

The January 5, 2009, edition of The Gleaner carried a front-page article that informed the readers of this paper of the involvement of "children as young as eight years old in sexually explicit street dances".

According to the writer of the article, during the late-night hours of the Christmas season, these young children were observed performing the 'Daggerin', defined by some as "a quasi erotic dance".

Since I had never heard of this dance, I asked a street-wise and intelligent young man if he could describe the 'Daggerin' dance. He told me that 'daggerin' is an overt demonstration of rough and crude sex. He made sure that someone of my vintage could comprehend what he meant, so he further elaborated on 'daggerin' as a kind of 'slam-bam' activity.

During the morning hours of January 28, a host on a local talk show carried by FM 93.7 used the term 'daggerin' to clarify the kind of sexual activity that one of his callers was describing. His discussion of and context were very explicit. This helped me to fully comprehend the activity of 'daggerin' and to use this motif of the penis as the 'dagger' to critically analyse the oversexualised context in which far too many Jamaican children are being socialised.

It has been observed that the majority of the little ones doing the 'daggerin' in the nights on the streets of our towns and villages are girls. This means that since girls do not have penises, this latest dance is sending out the subliminal image of girls' desire to be daggered. On the other hand, little boys are being socialised to accept the daggering effects of their penis. They also know that every little girl is waiting for the appropriate moment when she must be daggered.

The adult men and women who are reported as onlookers who goad on these eight-year-old babes to gyrate and thrust their pelvises forward to simulate the penis as dagger are an interesting reflection of the levels of degradation and the depths of inhumanity to which far too many adults in the Jamaican society have sunk.

sick minds

They use their sick minds to project adult distorted sexual desires on our children. These are the adults who are driving up the levels of carnal abuse, incest, rapes, teenage and unwanted pregnancies, the need for abortion and the generalised high levels of child abuse which were reported in the local media house on January 26 and on CNN on January 25, 2009.

No child registry or other government agency can find many meaningful ways of dealing with this state of affairs. What is needed is a wholesale holistic approach to reinvent and reform every community in every corner of the island so that adults and children will understand that childhood is a special period of human development and that this period must be protected from the contaminated and twisted minds of many adults who are posing as models of growth and development.

The time has surely come for the Government to demand of all functionaries responsible for the protection of our children and all adults who make the decision to have children to live up to their responsibility and move beyond rhetoric and come up with more workable and sustainable approaches to dealing with the abuse of our children.

Something drastic has to be put in place so that all of us can come to the understanding that the integrity of childhood is the most important building block in our pursuit of a sustainable socially coherent, economically viable and spiritually enriched, civilised and developed society.

Dr Glenda P. Simms is a consultant on gender issues. Feedback may be sent to columns@gleanerjm.com