The Tribune

The lines from a famous early Sparrow Calypso - “Get The Cat” - have come back to haunt us. In a 2008 article in The Tribune, Larry Smith talked about the destruction of the Bahamian community as crime rose and violence increased.

What was not mentioned was the cost of youth. Now, children are on sale on every street corner in the nation’s capital and can be had for cheap if they are caught broke. The tragedy of this fact is that it is about selling youth and oftentimes parents are complicit in this, even more than complicit, they encourage.

Much like Jonathan Swift’s “A Modest Proposal”, the youth of the nation are for sale. This time young meat is not to be used for food at rich tables or for shoes and clothes. An elderly gentleman can be standing at a bus stop on Bay Street and be solicited for $5 for favours. Apparently, the times warrant such desperation.

When I received feedback about packing boys and girls needing to work to augment their allowance, I was pleased. I agree and see it as a part of learning responsibility and the value of money. However, it cannot replace education. Sadly, if the family does not provide the support to facilitate a proper education then work takes over and the G average rules.

Society often blames boys for all failings, the D or G average, the crime and violence, the babies, but what about the girls? How do the girls push this? The girls are charged with more responsibility than the boys so the latter are never required to be responsible; no big surprise then when they are not. However, the girls go out and raise money from the hair man, the nails man, the phone-card man, as they have seen patterned around them.

When a child sees their mother come home with a different man and take the money, what else will she or he do? Especially when a mother says go out and bring home some money. Or, if a mother’s boyfriend wants someone younger then the daughter is forced to deal with him. This ‘fashion’ breeds videos as the one based in Freeport recently posted to the internet. When the daughter who is barely a teenager has a boyfriend in his twenties, where are the parents? What are they saying? Bring some money?

When mothers stand by and watch as their daughters sell, or simply sell their daughters to men perhaps the damage is too great and society cannot recover. These are trends that have been developing for years. It certainly is hard to do a statistical study and determine how many girls are given a phone card in return for love or a chicken snack in return for company. However, from late primary school through high school and college this is practised. (Just listen to the stories from the youngsters; they talk about it all).

The people who are giving the chicken snacks and the phone cards are more alarming. They are known individuals. When both Swift and Sparrow penned their works they were using satire to criticise social trends. No one is criticising them now, though. The dominant attitude appears to be, if I could get part my light bill pay, well go do it, sell that cat.

To be sure, consumption has taken on epidemic meaning when transactional relations are commonplace. We are patting ourselves on the back for lowering teenage pregnancy rates, but what of those teenagers who do become pregnant, do they only do it once? Or, are they repeat visitors to the maternity ward before their 19th birthday? Who looks after the children?

Still, we choose to sell all in order to have the hair, the nails, the bag, the shoes, and we think nothing of it. I have used this analogy recently, but it was forcibly brought home to me when I witnessed a child accosting a potential transactional target. It was all about the money. Apparently, in order to be well dressed one must conduct business. Yet, crime is down and the youth are being taken seriously.

It had always struck me that prostitution was a crime but transactional lust was not. Apparently there is a difference. At the end of the day, selling the youth and encouraging the youth to sell is not criminal; consciences can be clear.

The future is a very dark country if this is what we believe. Yet we blame the young men. How can they even begin to compete with the men who can buy the chicken snack when all they have is a piece of paper saying they went to school? One has to pay to play these days. Sparrow was not off beat.