Saturday, July 5 2008

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FPA CHAIRMAN Gerry Brooks...

FOR 2007, there were 126 reported cases of child sex abuse, revealed a concerned Gerry Brooks, chairman of the Family Planning Association. He made this revelation at the association’s annual general meeting at Crowne Plaza, Wrightson Road in Port-of-Spain yesterday.

Brooks said he was particularly concerned with the increasing incidence of violence, sexual exploitation, abuse and HIV/AIDS affecting the youth population today.

“A developed nation can be identified by its attitude and responsibility to its children, its youth, its elderly and its differently abled,” Brooks said. He added that young people were losing their lives to crime and illness and more of them are wasting away in prison, awaiting charges or on bail.

“We are witnessing a loss of intellectual capacity and a devastating reduction in our most valuable resource, our future leaders, professionals, care givers and families,” he said. Brooks said it was imperative that “we look to the future well-being of our children” as the ignorance of today will only foster the injustice of tomorrow as our youth are not only victims of crime but consenting accomplices.

He went on to say that young impressionable minds are being recruited and negatively influenced and this downward spiral we are faced with must be put to a stop. Brooks noted that the leading cause of death for Caribbean people between the age of 15 and 24 is AIDS.

He warned that the social landscape of the nation is deteriorating and the increase in criminal activity is diminishing our sense of community, the news headlines crammed with disturbing reports; babies crawling in their parents’ blood, the disappearance of young girls, adolescents selling their bodies in the classroom for five dollars, pornography via cell phones and fathers killing mothers and their children.

This is the grim reality of TT today and these deplorable acts dominate daily news reports, their frequency numbing our sensibilities as we become painfully more exposed and aware of such atrocities, which continue to occur with alarming regularity.”