Family Unit Maybe Under Threat: Barbados Government To Lower Age Of Consent

Image Source: Nation Newspaper

The recent announcement by the government that they intend to lower the age of consent from eighteen years old to sixteen has caused many Barbadians to flicker eye-brows. The decision if promulgated will see sixteen year olds being able to seek medical attention without the consent of their parents. While the BU household understands the ‘business logic’ behind the proposal, the BU family knows that it does not square with the family centric positions which we have espoused over the past fourteen months. The truth be told, we are not sure about this proposal at all. We have this unexplained feeling that the change would have an irreversible and reverberating impact on the titled role which a family should play in a successful society. The BU household strongly believes that the family unit must be promoted as the focal point of a national strategy which seeks to arrest and promote undesirable moral behavior.

We want to believe that Prime Minister Thompson is receptive to our position. Isn’t he the architect of the Families First Programme?

The government led by the enthusiastic, intelligent and beautiful Minister of Family Care Esther Byer-Suckoo appears to be committed to lowering the age of consent. We deliberately omitted that many Barbadians feel that she maybe in danger of suffering from too much exposure to local media. We may elaborate on this matter in a future blog. To her credit she has had very vocal support from the quietest Democratic Labour Party Member of Parliament, Minister George Hutson, and the ever loquacious Ronald Jones. As we have alluded to prior, the BU household believes the import of lowering the age of consent may dislodge some social structures which are critical to maintaining social harmony.

No, we are not Gypsies! Can Minister Byer-Suckoo tell us where we can find a country model that adopted the strategy of lowering the age of consent, and achieved a positive result.

Minister Byer-Suckoo has shown early in her political career that she has some Clintoness characteristics, one of which is testicular fortitude. She recently was reported in the media as vetoing a plan to distribute condoms in prison. The ‘business logic’ exposed by the beautiful Minister Suckoo, details that we have a growing problem of under-aged pregnancy and HIV/AIDS, which has led to the urgent need to lower the age of consent. Do we detect a contradiction in government’s argument, i.e. it is acceptable to lower the age of consent but it is reprehensible to distribute condoms in prison? Using the logic advocated by the government’s proponents who support lowering the age of consent, they say it is to respond to a known undesirable behaviour among young people. On the other side of the coin our government is refusing to distribute condoms in prison despite of a known behaviour we all know to exist.

Prisons all over the world seem to affect inmates in a common way. Several reasons have been identified over the years why heterosexual men are prepared to engage in bulling while incarcerated. Whatever the reasons, the reality is that it is an undesirable behaviour which no doubt occurs in our prison! If we know that our prisoners bull then the possibility that they will contract the HIV/AIDS virus is real. So what happens when the prisoners have served their time and are released into the society Minister Suckoo? Remember that many of the prisoners who were bullying are not homosexuals. What happens when they resume their heterosexual behaviour Minister Suckoo?

Despite our best effort we are unable to reconcile the two positions of government 1)lowering the age of consent and 2) refusing to distribute condoms in prison. In both cases we can presuppose a known behaviour exist but the response by government has been on the opposite ends of the business logic. We smell a STINK.

To our favourite Minister Esther Byer-Suckoo we want to follow your lead. We know that you are a successful doctor and a budding young politician who has been anointed by some as a future Prime Minister. More important to the BU household is the fact that you are the matriarch of a successful family unit.

You need to tell us some more Minister, we are not convinced.

Related Links

• Minister Esther Byer-Suckoo’s Positive Call To Our Young People

• Democratic Labour Party (DLP) & Barbados Labour Party (BLP) Get Failing Grade On The Issue Of Homosexuality