So our homeless brothers are back on the menu again and no real serious help coming their way despite promises made and online fund raising attempts (see GoFundMe account launched to help 'gully queens'), it could also be a function of the increased case load of forced evictions especially from western Jamaica due to the lotto scamming unraveling as others who would use them for errands or even making calls to scam persons overseas.
courtesy of the Star News
from the Gleaner
Detective Inspector at the Centre for the Investigation of Sexual Offences and Child Abuse (CISOCA), Claudette Hepburn (above), has confirmed that at least a handful of minors are living among homosexuals in gullies in the Corporate Area.
Hepburn says although CISOCA has received reports and acted on them, the minors always manage to elude the police.
She noted that the police are wary about how they approach retrieving the minors.
“These are children that we are dealing with. I can't send officers to run in the gully along with these men, these men are quite dangerous. Also, we don't want it to be said that the police are using force on them because they are of a different 'lifestyle'. That suggests so many things including that they are sexually abused and as for the word 'lifestyle' someone please help the dear lady to recognise sexual orientation. At least her predecessor was a little more enlightened.
CISOCA never discriminates,” she continued. Ooops it seems the CISOCA head needs an intervention, one wonders if the goodly JFLAG as reached out to her yet or are they business with the sleek social media campaigns as homeless are not on the agenda right now? maybe it could be the present legal mess one of the Associate Director one Latoya Nugent has found herself in, in misguided set of actions that had her arrested for breaching the Cybercrimes act of 2015, they may have to be helping to put out fires and finding funding for the legal fees.
The latest documentary involving some of the homeless gully queens
Unneeded heat and diversions from what ought to be more pertinent matters and the homeless get left out in the cold once again; save and except for the usual using them to shoot documentaries, pawns in the HIV prevention chess game and to a certain extent crisis communication.
She mentioned an incident where a father journeyed from Clarendon to retrieve his son who was lured to the gully by an individual he contacted online.
The police, along with the father, tried unsuccessfully to retrieve the youngster. Sadly we do not know what 'retrieved' mean in this instance, is this with a view for genuine reintegration or for further abuse and homophobia as I suspect caused him to run from home in the first place
“The police assisted the father down there on two occasions. The last occasion, when the police was there, the little boy came out of the gully and said 'Daddy', and by the time the father said 'Son, why yu do that to me', the little boy ran right back into the gully,” Hepburn said. That says alot about this case without saying much, if things were right at home why would he run when his father came? Unless he is so unruly which is highly unlikely I think.
She is concerned that if parents are not more vigilant about how they allow their kids to surf the web, it could lead to dire consequences.
She acknowledged that it would take a collaborative effort between CISOCA, parents and corporate groups for children to be removed from the gully and adults who are sex offenders to be brought to justice.
“If we get the minors who are willing to give statements, we will take action. And if they are not willing to give the statements, I am going to put them before the Family Court as children in need of care and protection,” she said.
Hope remains while company is true even as more elite activists continue to ignore the homeless, there is a thinking by some that they did not get their degrees and Ph.D to simply end up working with scruffy smelly gays, sad that the NGOs tagline is equality but the glaring inequality is staring us all in the face; the virtuous ideal advocated for is missing and not demonstrably clear in our own backyard.
A Gleaner Editorial said:
More anon
Peace & tolerance
H
She mentioned an incident where a father journeyed from Clarendon to retrieve his son who was lured to the gully by an individual he contacted online.
The police, along with the father, tried unsuccessfully to retrieve the youngster. Sadly we do not know what 'retrieved' mean in this instance, is this with a view for genuine reintegration or for further abuse and homophobia as I suspect caused him to run from home in the first place
“The police assisted the father down there on two occasions. The last occasion, when the police was there, the little boy came out of the gully and said 'Daddy', and by the time the father said 'Son, why yu do that to me', the little boy ran right back into the gully,” Hepburn said. That says alot about this case without saying much, if things were right at home why would he run when his father came? Unless he is so unruly which is highly unlikely I think.
She is concerned that if parents are not more vigilant about how they allow their kids to surf the web, it could lead to dire consequences.
She acknowledged that it would take a collaborative effort between CISOCA, parents and corporate groups for children to be removed from the gully and adults who are sex offenders to be brought to justice.
“If we get the minors who are willing to give statements, we will take action. And if they are not willing to give the statements, I am going to put them before the Family Court as children in need of care and protection,” she said.
Hope remains while company is true even as more elite activists continue to ignore the homeless, there is a thinking by some that they did not get their degrees and Ph.D to simply end up working with scruffy smelly gays, sad that the NGOs tagline is equality but the glaring inequality is staring us all in the face; the virtuous ideal advocated for is missing and not demonstrably clear in our own backyard.
A Gleaner Editorial said:
We may have missed it, but we haven't seen or heard of a declaration of embarrassment and regret from Enid Ross-Stewart, head of the Centre for the Investigation of Sexual Offences and Child Abuse (CISOCA). That action would have been expected in response to the scandalous ambivalence, surrender even, of police personnel with regard to the recent revelation, in our sister publication, THE STAR, of a 14-year-old boy living in Kingston's gullies with putative criminals.
What is particularly galling is that the boy is suspected of being sexually groomed, or worse, by homeless gay and transgender men living in grimy gullies, some of them emerging at night as thieves and societal misfits.
The boy's father has appealed to the police force on numerous occasions to rescue his son, who was reportedly lured by a person with whom he made contact online. The police admitted to having gone to find the teenager but failed to secure his return, even after locating him.
"These are children that we are dealing with. I can't send officers to go in the gully along with these men. These men are quite dangerous," Detective Inspector Claudette Hepburn. "Also, we don't want it to be said that the police are using force on them because they are of a different lifestyle. CISOCA never discriminates."
Perhaps CISOCA never discriminates! But it sometimes does worse!
Inspector Hepburn, in a stunning admission of incompetence and apathy, said the police personnel under her charge were more concerned about perceived criticism that may follow from hostile interaction with a gay gang and chose, instead, to leave him in the arms of these "quite dangerous" men.
The boy's father is distraught and desperate. But the police, it seems, believe that the boy's sexual orientation makes him less worthy of salvation.
Inspector Hepburn's cavalier approach to this matter underlines the chilling effect of homophobia among the police and how even arms of the State created specifically to protect children from sexual and other abuse have decided to fold their arms. It cannot be right that children - for we understand that this 14-year-old's is not the only case - are left to fend for themselves amid sexual predators.
That sort of abandonment by the State may validate the misconception that the lives of boys, particularly those who indulge in at-risk behaviour, are of less worth and importance than others'. The police, therefore, would be complicit in class and gender discrimination, and play a not-insignificant role in the hardening of stigmas against sexual minorities.
That the boy may be gay or bisexual makes him just as, if not more, vulnerable to abuse as any other child. In fact, this newspaper posits that were the father's appeal about a girl living with men in a gully, CISOCA's reaction may have been more strong-willed and definitive; it would not have responded so limply and shrugged its shoulders.
The fact that Superintendent Ross-Stewart hasn't, at least publicly, reprimanded Inspector Hepburn and disavowed her views as anathema to the philosophy and policy of that sensitive agency, contributes to a deficit in trust and damages CISOCA's credibility.
Should Supt Ross-Stewart want to repair the damage done to CISOCA's image, this newspaper implores that she and her middle-tier leadership be more objective, sensitive and compassionate in the pursuit of the organisation's remit.
ENDS
More anon
Peace & tolerance
H
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