(JollofNews) – Child right advocates in The Gambia has condemned a video purportedly filmed by an adult showing a minor insulting the country’s former president Yahya Jammeh.
In the video circulated on the whatsapp social app, showed the minor girl, apparently in her less than ten years insulting Mr. Jammeh, saying he will never stay in the country.
“This is the most disturbing, heartrending video out in The Gambia. That an adult should video a child uttering such profanities and posted is beyond the social pale,” Njundu Drammeh, coordinator of Child Protection Alliance; an alliance of about 36 member organizations said.
He said thed child learnt such kind of insults by hearing them from her environment. “I abhor and condemn it in the strongest term. This girl will hate this video in the future.”
Child abuse is a criminal offence in the country and in the past, many adults were prosecuted on child rape and trafficking. Two years ago, former President Yahya Jammeh announced total ban on Female Genital Mutilation and Cutting (FGMC) and placed tough punishment for defaulters.
Flanked by other children, it could be visibly seen that the words were fed into the child’s mouth by an adult, suspectedly the one who video her.
Executive director of National Youth Council Lamin Darboe said the video represents a serious act of child abuse and irresponsiblity on the side of the adult who vedio it.
Following the defeat of former President Yahya Jammeh, many Gambians have stooped to using abusive languages against him but this video is the first that involved a minor girl.
On Thursday, twelve members of the country’s Armed Forces where paraded before a military Court Martial at the first Infantry battalion in Yundum, some 27 kilometer from the capital city, Banjul on charges of treason and concealment of treason. They were arrested in July in connection with an alleged social media app Whatsapp messages and voices they have been sharing among themselves that are critical to the government.
“This video is one of the worst form of child abuse and exploitation. This teaches her to believe that the only way out is to use abusive language,” Haruna Badjie, Department of Social Welfare in West Coast Region said.
He said the video by all indications justifies that an adult is somewhere using the child to get a political motivated objective. “I strongly condemn this video in its entirety for children should be taught to show good morals and behaviour no man of women in his or her right senses will appreciate this video.”
Mr. Badjie said thr act hss expose the child to risk of hostile attacks from the other camp and has stained her future.
On the “UN Day of The Children”, such a Distasteful, Creepy and Insidious Video should be Concerned by all. Fortunately, even though we are our Environment, with the right mitigation, this Exploited poor child may not be traumatized by this experience. But for the grace of Allah/God and the Communal nature of child rearing in most African Communities, children such as this poor innocent child would be turned into a Worst form Adult. An adult who Hates for the sake of hate and Ignorance drived from Fear of the “Other”. Gambians need to be very Careful and be Worried about this Indoctrination and Hateful Nurturing of our innocent Children. If we fail to seriously mitigate the brewing underground Kneejerk, Reactionary, Hatefulness in and among the adults, and those adults pass on their Venum of Hate to the next generations, the Gambia as we know it as a Peaceful Co-exitence Nation Shall be No more. One man, in the name Yaya Jammeh should not after the fact, accomplish what the Soninke Wars, the Agitation against Colonial Rule and Over 50 years of Self-Rule and “Independence” could not turn Gambians into. All of the above could not turn us, Gambians into Beasts or Murderous beings, hell bent on Self-destruction. Yes, there have been times when Gambians came Close to turning against each other in a Myopic and Dogmatic Reactionary response to Ethnic Group and or Political Affiliation Orgy of Communal Mayhem. We, the Gambians are better than that and need to inculcate our best quality and innate nature to our Offsprings. On many occasions, I wrote about Marginalization and Selective Justice in the Gambia. This kind of Videos are all forms of Marginalization and Dehumanizing Behavior of “Others”, One does consider human. On the “UN Day of the Child”, it is rather Paradoxical that such a Video Exposing the rampant exploitation of Children by adults who Profess or are Suppose to be the Children’s Caretakers is making the rounds on the Internet/Online. This is nothing the “New Gambia” Should Entertain or Nurture. Gambia is More than the Sum Total of One Ethnic Group or Region.
It only depicts the irresponsibility of most Gambians who have used children as undercover for every evil machination. The child’s parents must know that their daughter is already exposed to a lot of retaliation. May Allah save her from something she has never thought of saying!
If true, this behaviour does not only deserve condemnation but efforts must be made by those who know the child or recognise her, to report the case to the authorities, wherever the family may be resident, for the abuser(s) to be held to account. If the family is resident in Gambia, then we must call on the authorities to hold the culprits to account, as soon as possible, to serve as a deterrence. Very disgraceful behaviour. It shows how unfit some are for parenthood.
A letter from Equatorial Guinea!
Fellow Gambians,
From my bolt hole i can clearly imagine your emancipated faces. How you must hate me and i wondered how many think of killing me, of assassinating an evil tyrant, but again imagining you all, i am filled with regret, regret of the unimaginable horrors i subjugated you to, the deaths, the disappearances, the tortures, the rapes and the mass swindling of our nation’s resources.
So now i am safe within the confines of my high walls, far away from the claws of your vengeance to wallow in my pitiful state of abandonment, fear and loneliness. Even though i illegally usurped power from a democratically elected leader with the help of brave soldiers, soldiers i later banished,some i killed, others i imprisoned while reduced some to nothingness other than tools of my destruction.
So you can all now shout freedom, organize free movements, free press and live life free of oppression, free of arbitrary arrest and detention, free of fear, fear of leaving home not knowing whether you will ever return. The days of impunity i worked to cement in our homeland is over and I BABOITA MANSA on bent knees asked you all for forgiveness, something i know you can’t imagine.
So i am safe so i assumed within the confines of your passivity to write this letter and address you and fill your oppressed hearts with mocking apologies and regrets and as i write i write for all the cowards who are here with me from my co-president Saul Badjie,the commander of thieves, to Bombadier the commander of my evil killers, my globe trotting gold digging BITCH who shagged all my top Generals and my dear mother, thanks to whom i never know who my daddy is.
And on behalf of the bunch of squatters with me here,i would like to thank my evil supporters chiefly my fellow mad professor by the name of Babu Soli for dipping their fingers in the Gambian blood, thus giving me the wrong to do wrong.
May God bless the Gambia and my final place is rest assured ………IN HELL FIRE.