Activists demands action to save nation's children

Executive director, Stand Up for Jamaica, Carla Gullotta, said she is extremely alarmed by what appears to be an increase in the attack on the nation's children.

"More times than not children are often abused and killed by people who they know and people who are known within the community. There is a way in which community and family members ignore signs of abuse and aggression towards children until it is too late. This has to change towards a more proactive approach of childcare and protection by the entire community," she said.

CULTUREOFVIOLENCE

Since the start of the year, dozens of children have been murdered and gone missing. Among the most recent death is 14-year-old Raven Wilson, whose body was found in a garbage bag with a wound to the face in Top Road, St Ann's Bay.

"Our children should not be the victims of the culture of violence in our nation, when we can act to prevent their abuse and murder," Gullotta said in a media release yesterday.

"The state of numbness we have reached where we dismiss child murders as just another horrible news item is a very worrying one that we must shake ourselves out of. The escalating cruelty against the nation's children should not only move us to tears but also to action."