Chief Probation and Welfare Officer in the Ministry of Labour, Human Services and Social Security, Ann Green, has lambasted [ please note: link provided by LOSP web site ] the residents at South Le Ressouvenir Pasture, East Coast Demerara for callously ignoring the plight of Geeta Bissessar. And she is perfectly right. While Geeta’s single-parent father was wrong to chain her to her bed where she died in a fire, the community, in which she had close relatives who knew of her situation, is partly to blame for her death.

Just how hard are the hearts of people who live daily with the knowledge that a nine-year-old mentally challenged child is chained like an animal? How difficult would it have been for a relative or a neighbour to undertake to watch this child during the day while her father worked? Why is it that no one thought they could approach the Human Services Ministry or a charitable organization to arrange for Geeta to enter a special school or day-care facility? Shame on you South Le Ressouvenir. And as letter writer Vidyaratha Kissoon said, (SN 29/10/2003) [ please note: link provided by LOSP web site ], shame on any of us who know of any other Geetas and fail to act now.

As is typical around the world, instances of child neglect and abuse mostly only become public knowledge in Guyana, when a child is seriously injured or dies. For some reason, so-called neighbours, many of whom claim to love children, turn a blind eye. But until reporting these ugly incidents and pursuing them to ensure justice is obtained for the child in question becomes second nature to us, we ought to stop using words and phrases such as warm, hospitable or family-friendly/oriented to refer to ourselves as a nation. Indeed, hospitality is a dying art and applicable to just a minority of Guyanese. Why else would there be a war on bad manners? [ please note: link provided by LOSP web site ]

And what is family-friendly? It is parents and neighbours offering a listening ear and a helping hand. It is about people treating all families, whether two-parent or single-parent, the same. It is about employers offering parents flexible working hours, workplace crèches and time-off when their children are ill. It is about the government recognizing the importance of its Human Services Ministry and providing a purpose-built or modified building for it to operate from; appointing a minister who is passionate about people’s rights and hiring competent staff.

Examine the list above, which is by no means exhaustive, and decide if we fit the bill. If neighbours cared, Geeta Bissessar, Daniel Naitram (nine-year-old victim of an apparent sacrificial killing), Rahim Abdool [ please note: link provided by LOSP web site ] (whose 13-year-old battered body was discovered some time after he disappeared from an orphanage) Taigwan Sundar (who died at 14 after he was beaten for viewing pornography on the internet), Shelton Job (who died at three years old after months of physical abuse) and others would still be alive today.

If there were no discrimination, coming from a single-parent family would not be seen as a setback. If employers cared — government and private — they would flex, not gripe when their employees have a family crisis. Work place day-care facilities would be the rule rather than the exception.

If the government were serious about providing humane human services, social/welfare workers would not be operating in cramped, crabby cubicles where confidentiality is an impossibility.

If we were to score out all the items that are found wanting there could well be a solid black patch on the page. Family-friendly we are not.

While cynics might disagree and while it might be difficult, it is not too late to return to the human values that once distinguished us as a people. In fact, it is absolutely necessary that we do so. If not, we may as well put an end to an idea of an ordered state and embrace incivility as a way of life.

“It cannot be, when the root is neglected, that what should spring from it will be well ordered. It never has been the case that what was of great importance has been slightly cared for, and, at the same time, that what was of slight importance has been greatly cared for.” (From The Great Learning [ please note: link provided by LOSP web site ] by Confucius [500 BC] Translated by James Legge)