What Is A Child Worth?

September 29th, 2008 |By Marvia Lawes in: Missioner Reflections | 1 Comment »

Are children worth anything these days? I have to ask, because our actions say otherwise. Children are still God’s treasured creation, but we are failing to treat them as such. Last night, Shellaine (in photo) called me, ‘to talk’. [For those of you who do not know, Shellaine is my now 8 year old cousin "niece/daughter" and the aware child consumer I've spoken about in previous articles on products made in China.]

Thankfully, last night’s call wasn’t about China. Unfortunately, it was even worse.

She wanted to tell me that two children were murdered in Jamaica. One was a little girl named Amanda who went missing a couple weeks ago. She left school was last seen at a bus terminal in Kingston before she disappeared. ‘Her decomposed body was found wearing only her underwear’. That was exactly how this 8 year old reported what she heard on the news. She wanted to know what they did with Amanda why they had to take off her clothes. I could barely mumble I don’t know.

Then she continued..’and they also found the body parts of a 12 year old boy’. She said the news said that the way the boy was chopped up, it must have been a butcher who did it. Then here comes the question “Aunty, the news said the chops were straight and clean. So do you think a butcher did it and why would someone chop up a little boy like that Aunty?

And what kind of great answer do you think her oh so knowledgeable aunt came up with? I don’t know. I honestly couldn’t come up with anything at the moment. I was so busy thinking how I could get my mother to lock her up inside so that she doesn’t go out again. But hey, this is Jamaica. You aren’t even safe in your own home. But I’m thinking of locking her up to protect her because I believe she is a precious child. So are all the nation’s children.

Locking her/them away is hardly the answer. Banning her from listening to the news, reading the newspapers or otherwise curbing her news junkie habits is not going to solve the problem. We have lost our souls. We no longer care about the vulnerable, weak and powerless. It’s the age of domination, violence, might and exploitation. Long live ‘Power’! And some of us feel all too powerful when we are up against children and women. Sad!

In Jamaica this is 2 more added to the growing numbers of children being murdered. In Panama in general, and Colon where I serve children are at great risk. And in the US, today’s news carried the story of the remains of 2 children 7 and 6 years old found in a freezer.

In Colon, when I am leaving the city some nights to go home after either the Radio Program or Bible Study it is not unusual to see children as young as 6 years old on the streets. These are not homeless kids. Their parents are in their homes, watching TV or in bed and the kids are out walking or playing with their friends. It has gotten so bad that the government had to impose a law to pick up the children and youth off the street after 7pm. They are taken to the police station and their parents are called to go get them. There is now talk of fining parents for repeat episodes.

But the general trend is the kind of abuse and horrible deaths our children suffer. I really have to ask what are our children worth. I suppose they fetch a lot on the human trafficking market. I know they must have a good price for the amount of money they make for the sex/child pornography industry. They make a good profit for those who use them to peddle drugs. But when they are not that profitable to us, what are they worth?

What is the worth of a child to you? Do you care enough to join forces to protect our children?

I’m taking this literally at this time, I pray that this is true and I hope it will be true on the day when we all give an account of what we have done with the life we have, and the lives entrusted to our care. I believe some people need to have “millstones about their necks and then thrown into the sea” (Matthew 18:6b)

Angry,
Marvia

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