Submitted by The Mahogany Coconut Think Tank/Watchdog Group
Vivian Anne Gittens: Publisher of the Nation Newspaper
The publishing by the Nation Newspaper of Barbados, of two minors engaging in sexual activity, is a violent violation of the Convention of Rights of Children (CRC) as outlined by UNICEF of which the country of Barbados is a signatory. It is clearly pointed out within the CRC, that children have rights and privileges of adults. They are not the property of their parents or their schools but are equal to adults.
The photo carried on the back page of the Sunday Sun, was a very voracious grab at sensationalism and the public is correct in its outrage. Whether we condone under aged children having sex is irrelevant and the nation must know that in a small country such as Barbados, the children’s identities cannot be hidden.
The Mahogany Coconut Group calls on the greedy predators at the Nation Newspaper to desist from exploiting our Caribbean children with immediate effect .
We are convinced that this act of professional vulgarity will place the Barbadian journalist community in the trash heap of the profession. The Nation newspaper should be ashamed to exploit the images of Caribbean children. Its greed makes a mockery of its editorials calling for national morality. Once again we ask the simple question: Who will guard the guardians?
The top brass at the nation should be aware of the specific guidelines related to children in the document: Child Rights and The Media-Putting Children in the Right- Guidelines for Journalists and Media Professions by the International Federation of Journalists.
We quote from this document:
“Journalists need to be aware of the consequences of their reporting.
The co-operation of media organizations and journalists and their
Orientation towards safeguarding the rights and the dignity of children and
young adults is extremely important for all who strive for wider recognition
of children’s rights. Sensational coverage may distort and exploit a serious
problem, doing more harm than good. Some editors claim that
sensationalism permits serious social issues to capture the attention of
readers and viewers. However, such coverage rarely analyses the social and
economic causes of abuse of children: the dislocation of communities and
families, homelessness, corrupt employers, pimps, the drug culture or why
parents in poverty sell a child to support the rest of the family. The positive
story of children, their lives and their rights is not being told in full. To
examine how this can be changed requires examination of the professional
conditions in which media work, a review of the principles or guidelines
journalists and programme makers should follow, and the obstacles that
stand in the way of good journalism.”
Sued for what, in what?
tell me why you forgot about them suing the church because at some point the missionary position could have been used
To you Ross one who dabbles in law. you can research and find that these children Have legal grounds to pursue this article under laws that have found simulation ofa sexua act or content in regards to a minor as illegal there are case laws to prove where persons have been found guilty of such publications. there are sufficient legal grounds where or if the plaintiff wantsto sue the courts would give way.
And furthermore the fact isthat there was a video which revealed the children identities on facebook .knowing this the nationand publisher opened up themselves for civil action against them based on the fact that the nation knowingly printed and published an article with images that was based on child porn which involved two children whose identity was made public
LOL @ Lawson
David why not close this stupid blog and save what little of ac’s dignity remains nuh? 🙂
Two wutless children doing shiite and a whole bunch of nonsense talk about the Nation for raising the matter….
When that damn girl turns up pregnant next year and a baby results – with all the attendant consequences and expenses will we dismiss it as the harmless actions of children?
If these children don’t learn responsible behaviors they must be prepared to pay the price….
…which could include pregnancy with severe consequences for the rest of their lives …and that of the child
…could include serious sexually transmitted diseases, including AIDS
….could cancel any chance of them benefitting from our EXPENSIVE education system
…etc
What you sow , your donkey shall reap.
FOR ONCE, the nation has done us a favor….. why not let us deal with the PROBLEM and not the damn messenger.
LOL
Next thing wunna vex with Bushie for showing how Bajans seem to be such unrepentant brass bowls….
Wuh Bushie is only a messenger……
Bushie what duifference doest uit nmake to yiu if the child turns up pregnant you are trying to cloud the issue one of which is child pornm. the fact is that everybody knows that children worldwide are engaged in sexual activity including which involves getting pregant and there are stastitics to prove such. Also what is a fact and the gensis of the issue is whether the Nation did or did not knowingly published images dealing with child porn. Those are the facts on which this issue hinges not pregancy
Look ac,
We also have issues of incest and other abhorrent behaviors….and one of the reasons that the statistics continue to shown that these problems are growing is that people like you prefer to HIDE UP the problem and pretend that they do not exists …or that they are normal.
Child porn is a deliberate exploitation of children for sexual reasons, how the hell can it be child porn when someone is EXPOSING exploitation and calling for solutions?
So when a priest gets up in the pulpit and talk about incest is he dealing in porn too?
Steupssss
You like you got close hang out and looking for rain yuh….
What porn what?
Reblogged this on CARIBBEAN VIBE – Whats News.
Here is a hypothetical case which has nothing to do with any cases before the courts in Barbados.
Let us say that a leading publication published soft porn of teenagers having sex in a classroom.
After an unacceptably long delay, charges were brought against two teenagers for allegedly taking explicitly sexual photographs of a school girl.
But right thinking people have been much more concerned about the editorial decision by that publication to take what could be described as teenage exuberance and amplify it in to national coverage.
At the time of writing the publication in question has not seen it fit to offer its readers and the nation an apology, it has not sought to explain its decision to publish – not even using the bogus justification of freedom of speech.
Equally informative is that the vast majority of Barbadians have chosen to bury their heads in the sand and pretend that the soft pornography that the publication offered as ‘news’ was either not out of the ordinary, or not a big thing.
The police have not announced if they had any intentions of questioning the journalists involved, or even if charges will be brought against them.
In the meantime, the attorney has kept his own counsel, the Guyana-born director of public prosecutions is once again caught on his back foot, and two young lads, in the prime of their lives, will have their opportunities cut short.
@Hal
What it will do is give reason for school children to pause BEFORE recording and posting crap to FB and other social media sites.
In fairness to the Nation it ran a couple of editorials on the matter.
Video shock!
By TIM SLINGER | Thu, November 14, 2013 – 12:10 AM
POLICE HAVE LAUNCHED an investigation into an obscene Internet video posting involving one of their officers.
The nude video scene, which has been widely circulated on a number of Internet sites, including Facebook, as well as via BlackBerry Messenger, features a man, identified as a police sergeant, masturbating for about two minutes.
Assistant Commissioner of Police (Crime) Mark Thompson yesterday said the matter was being looked into by the Criminal Investigation Department (CID).
“I can confirm that it has been brought to our attention that a nude image of one of our members has been circulated through cyberspace. As to be expected in such circumstances, we have launched a formal investigation into the matter,” Thompson told the DAILY NATION.
Please read the full story in today’s DAILY NATION, or in the eNATION edition.
@ David
Children will be children. The media also have a responsibility. They cannot pretend to operate in an unregulated world.
It is a big debate going here at present in the UK with the Leveson Inquiry.
It was also the reason why despite two approaches I declined to give evidence to the Inquiry.
I thought it was a waster of time and it has turned out to be.
Teenagers will be teenagers. Adults are there to guide them.
This article by Tim Slinger certainly puts another twist on the old cliche “the long arm of the law”
The officer should secure the services of skin his pooch Alair Shepherd.
I can see his defense no
“Me Lady, may I approach the bench”
“The internet posting infers that my client was masturbating but as with our matter where the salacious Nation vendors impute that i was showing you my ass, I, being in a similar position of misinterpretation can speak for this man, given that i was in fact tying my shoe laces and did not skin my pooch at you”
The RBPF officer, of the recently disgraced wiretapping police institution know as the Royal Barbados Police Force was not self flagellating or masturbating as the FB posting would seem to suggest, he was, in fact, fo*ping a ghost!!”
“I further put it to you that, as a representative of the law of this land, given that he was using the long arm of the law on his “third leg”, he is not like common men and cannot be considered to be jerking off.”
The officer works at the Accident Division and, on coming to an accident scene found that he did not have his tape measure and took out his tool to measure the skid marks in the road”
“Being that his tool was too short for the task, he proceeded to stretch said tool as is evidenced by his rapid to and fro motion (i almost said two since the tool was sort of short) and continued to stretch it for a couple moments until he realised that this stretching plan was not going to work”
“If your Honour so desired he would be willing to let you examine the evidence close up”
“I myself have seen the evidence and while i will not go into those details, i will assure the court that he was either copulating with Casper the friendly ghost or taking the measurements for an accident”
“The defense rests”
All o wunna people mekking a lotta foolish sport yuh!
Since when it make sense to solve a problem by attacking those who HIGHLIGHT the problem?
The damn problem is that the brass bowls in charge of education DO NOT KNOW WHAT THEY ARE DOING!
…as a result all kinds of shiite is happening…..including the FACT that the children (who for the most part are much cleverer than their “educators”) use the whole system in their OWN misguided interest….
…..As a dating opportunity
…..to sell drugs
…..as a means of FREE Transport up and down the place
…..to create gang-like groups
…..to learn how to buck the system
….and of course for unlimited sex
All along, some have been publishing these behaviors on the social sites, telling school officials, telling parents, etc …..but like true brass bowls, we pretend that it does NOT exist….
Now that the Nation throws the whole nastiness in our faces, we react by condemning the MESSENGERS…..the Nation and the two schoolboys who dared to expose this blight publicly.
Worse of all is the official reaction by the police…..charging – NOT the PHOOPERS, – but those who expose the phooping….. WTF!!
Message to all (intelligent) children…… Phoop all wunna want….but DO NOT let the stupid outsiders know about it….
…and to teachers…..
“Forget the PHOOPERS, get those cell phones, or at least, make sure the action is NOT posted on line…..
What a set of brass bowls!!!
Remember when BU highlighted the gangs groups at BCC some said it has been happening for years so what is the problem. The chickens are coming home to roost, the weeds are sprouting freely on the lawns.
Technology has made fools of many and exposed those who used to be hiding. That policeman got to be an IDIOT and he deserves to be exposed charged and fired!
Islandgal
Technology did not make a fool of anyone. It merely EXPOSED the endemic folly that we like to PRETEND does not exist.
The solution is not to ban the technology, but to correct the FOLLY.
If the technology helps to achieve this, then Bushie says let it rip….
GIVE CELL PHONES TO ALL SCHOOL CHILDREN….let them expose the shiite going on in the schools …
…let us see what teachers are doing….
…let us see what happens in the shadows…
Perhaps then some moron would figure out that we NEED to put competent people IN CHARGE and not just compliant LACKIES…..if we want good results….that is
Bajans rather hide and do wrong and show a better than thou art attitude to the world. If our PM our country’s leader claimed he saw vote buying and did NOTHING about it then what can we expect? Bushie you ask for competent people, where are they? Do we have any? Do you blame people with competency to stick around Barbados and get persecuted for competency? I don’t blame them for running from these brassbowls who have been given keys.
BU understands from a source Nation Editors are at District A being processed to be charh
Charged.
Good .now the next step if for the children rights to be protected.this recent relevation shed new light. guidance and direction is what these kids need not to be shamed and disgraced in the media. now is the time for a good Civil RIGHTS lawyer chooled and knowelegable in Childrens RIGHTS to stand up and represent these children who through ignorance made a ugly mistake and was woefully scandalise and demonise by those in the media who should have known better.
Sorry to see Publisher Viviene Gittens mixed up in this but now maybe she will take her eyes of the P&L only and allocate some time to editorial content.
Any body that got themselves mixed up or even close to ROY MORRIS was looking fuh trouble. GOD don,t like ugly. This time his fingers was all over the trigger in this article. Unfortunately he might have taken a lot of innocent people down with HiM.
Well at long last Sanka Price now knows how it feels to be on the other side of the camera lens ….when the story behind such an event is not much to be proud of.
Just saw CBC News 7.00 pm…..I tell you Ms. Vivianne Gittens was visibly distressed and understandably shaken up ….as a chartered accountant it was most scandalous and unbecoming to be seen in the arms of the law…..(Harold Hoyte showed that he also felt her pain)…..As for Roy, D man was drinking from his water bottle, like he just ate a conkie cool as cool…Sanka on the other hand probably needed a change of underwear….. it was awful… this was meant to be a warning for the Fourth Estate…..I also doubt Ms. Gittens will be staying with the Nation after this…..somehow I gotta feeling someone in Fontabelle will be all smiles affa all this……
David
They should have known better. They only got themselves and their Trini bosses to blame for this. I don’t feel sorry anyone who seeks to pull down Barbados in gutter, especially those who do it for shallow reasons like money.
Alright den, same ting Pearlie tell wunnah. Wuflessness! Dem want a good piece a jail. Two big hard back experience men that should know better. And yuh gine hear a lotta idiots now saying how dem is some kinda heros, watch and see. I only sorry fuh de boss lady that get tie up in dat wid. Heyyyyyyy, but looka de Nation gone down in de gutter neh. Dem could print wuh dem like, but dem can’t carry down my sweet Barbados down in de gutter wid dem.
Could anyone in their right minds believe that two experienced journalist …..working with the very same newspaper for years…..did not know what was porn and what was not? What was printable what was not?The surprise was Vivianne……. Thinking caps on again please people ….how long since Roy come back to the paper?….Plot sounds like a book I once read…” To kill a mocking Bird”…or was it “Day of the Jackal”?..hmmmm
A new day has dawned in Barbados. This seems to be the case if one studies the charging of the Publisher and the Editor of the Nation and the writer of the offending article as well as the two children who allegedly took and circulated the original video on social media. I suppose we can now look forward to seeing the main child actors in the drama being also charged soon and a furtherance of the impression of a new even handedness in the legal system.
This development appears to be all good and proper and actually fulfills the calls of several sensible posters on BU, including Hal, for whom I have nuff respect. But I have mixed feelings about it. I am happy that something tangible is being done about the incident but I have some misgivings that the current activities seem to be akin to using a very fine net in a fishing operation that sweeps up everything in its path and that the use of a different net might have been better in the long run given the sensitivities of the circumstances and the real complexities of the issues.
It seems to me that there might be wrapped up in all this a number of imperatives flowing from recent happenings in Barbados and a possible perception that there is a need to send a strong message to people to toe the line, or else. I will just mention a few of the clues:-
The suspension of the CoP.
The alleged call by the MoE for strong arm action on dissenters.
The parlous state of our economy and a possible realization that the recent history of countries in similar situations showed several instances of civil unrest and perhaps suggested that a message should be sent to all and sundry that the authorities are not afraid to figuratively crack skulls of all types.
The inherent politics behind engineering any diminution in the standing of the Nation Newspaper.
A seemingly successful asymmetric method of dealing with problems that is now a characteristic of the Administration.
Heaven forfend, but could this situation suggest that there might be an escalation of strong arm action in areas that did not heretofore attract such action as the economic situation worsens.
OOB; We seem to be thinking along the same lines. Also, the article must have been vetted by the Nation’s lawyers. Why was it allowed to be printed if it was even marginally on the borderline?
Well congrats are in order for Sanka Price and Roy Morris. The Nation newspaper has now sunk further down the journalism cesspool ……..thanks to Sanka and Roy !
But then again what did Barbadians citizen expect…..now that we have a peodophile and sex predator working for the defendant – i.e Nationnews
We should bear in mind that the principles at the Nation have been charged only. They have not been convicted.
Look at the smile on Jordan’s face in breaking this news, not that she is without blame but the same scandal rag for a paper the Nation after had her doing their hatchet job against the DLP and accumulating a vast number of Law Suits against herself and the Nation they cut her free after she did their mission on their behalf only to find her with a vast number of Law Suits and to have to defend each and everyone of them at her own expense
The old people would say if you lay with dogs you bound to catch flees, seems like Gittens been laying with these two dogs in Roy Morris and Sanka Price for too long not only has she picked up flees she is now infested with big juicy ticks, a nasty bunch at the One Media,.
Add to this that no longer does Timothy Slinger have the luxury of taking up the phone and calling his client C of P Dottin and telling him let this one slide pass him, that is no longer we now have a serious and real C of P who is not corrupt nor does he take orders from Mottley or any politician to wire tap peoples phones or otherwise.
Does the Nation have an attorney on staff or as a consultant?
Were Gittens, Morris and Price familiar with thie Protection of Children Act?
And if not why not?
@ Simple Simon | November 15, 2013 at 2:38 AM |
Does the Nation have an attorney on staff or as a consultant?
Were Gittens, Morris and Price familiar with thie Protection of Children Act?
And if not why not?
—————–
You are making the same mistake that a lot are now, based on a faulty premise. And I am not talking about the question at hand, but on a wider basis.
You ask ‘an attorney on staff or consultant’. You are making that any attorney will do, that all decisions they make are sound. I have no knowledge of the Nation or nor its attorneys, nor if that individual if one exists was consulted, but your question kicked in my mind.
THAT is the issue. ‘AN Attorney’. Will ANY attorney do?
We have Ministers, we have administrators, we have attorneys in certain places and positions……..ahem……
So what? Half of them have no clue.
The problem in Barbados today is that we think sticking a title on someone makes then ‘it’.
And many think this way.
Sorry, but a title does not make someone capable.
That has never been more obvious than today.
Whether in terms of the ability or lack of of those in Parliament (and SIGNIFICANT other places) or in terms fo the West Indies cricket team (if we can call it that).
One needs ability / talent.
Some have none for what they do and are square pegs in round holes.
That is disaster.
@ are we there yet
The suspension of the CoP.
The alleged call by the MoE for strong arm action on dissenters.
———-
Those two incidences have yet to be properly explained and those two incidences have done more to damage our reputation as an investment location than many realize.
@ Crusoe
Editors can over-rule lawyers when it comes to content. What is really needed is proper training for Barbadian journalists. Here is an opportunity for the community college or for Sir Hilary.
I agree the Nation should not have published the photo.
But we do have a worse problem. That of running the schools.
Again, it comes down to ability or lack thereof and also improper management practices.
Think this would have happened openly so in a school thirty years ago?
Think again.
Simply double standards. What about the young boy gyrating on a woman during this year’s Crop Over. Why no charges were brought against the woman, the video taker and who put it on YouTube. What about the lady who also beat kill her daughter in the public road infront nuff people and not a charge instituted by the police. Did we hear a comment from the AG? If the Nation didn’t highlight this incident. Would we be commenting. The answer is ‘no’ it would have been swept under the carpet like all other matters. Again we await to see what will happen with the police on video.
Correction: “……lady who almost beat kill her daughter…..”
@ Tell me why
You are right. Whatever happened to that. Where is the DPP? Where is the attorney general? We must clean up public space and stop this vulgar behaviour which one doctor told me once was a Barbadian t’ing.
It is vulgar and embarrassing.
Where there is no vision the people perish. (or leadership)
Where there is no reporting no one will know
What is good for the goose is good for the gander.
Soooooooooo Whatelse is new Bdos?
Tell me Why | November 15, 2013 at 12:31 PM |
———
Umpire hands swaying left to right, off the back foot and through the covers.
Dang right!
The falling standards at the Nation newspaper have been repeated by me consistently to the point where the blog master chastised me for “not adding anything new to the blog”.
I am feeling very vindicated. As the old Bajan saying goes “Time longer than twine”.
Sanka Price is a BLP mouthpiece and a national disgrace.
Just when you thought that the Nation BLP Newspaper could sink no lower in the political gutter:
Saturday Sun editor Sanka Price takes up half of the back page with defeated BLP candidate Ian Gooding – Edghill standing next to a government employee putting up signs with the caption “Gooding – Edghill answers cries” clearly suggesting that Googing – Edghill is responsible for the signs going up.
Of course they will not tell you that the call from BLP headquarters in Roebuck street went out to the Nation BLP newspaper get there and arrange the photo shoot and that James Paul had been relentlessly contacting MTW on behalf of the same constituents. Gooding Edghill was told where to stand, how to hold the sign by the Nation BLP photographer.
I told you before that the Nation newspaper is the BLP public relations prostitute.
I will bet you a million dollars that you will never have seen a similar story about the good work of defeated candidates Patrick Todd and Patrick Tannis.
The BLP is running the Nation newspaper – Ask One Caribbean chairman and former BLP senator Sir Fred Gollop.
@Crusoe
do u exspect that the matter relating to dottin be ventilated in pblic by his accsuser when he has the govt in corut> please think again.
@Island Girl
u fah real. Any man can pull a jerk and vidieo tape himslef doing it, that is private bsiness. The person who posted it shold be charged for invasion of his privacy and posting nude pictre. Fire him and the govt will pay out a huge amont. Emotionalism shold be taken ot of analyis.
When i commented on the nation;s story, i pointed ot that it cold be charged.
was trying to make sense of Assistant Commissioner Mark Thompson’s statement in the Friday Nation. Seems to me that he was offering an apology to the country and Nation Newspaper for arresting its personnel
@balance
Assistant Commissioner Mark Thompson’s statement in the Friday Nation made perfect sense to me.
He was simply saying that freedom of the press must be defended but the rights of children must be protected as required by law.
It seems to me the “Newspaper” Editor/reporter broke the law but I am not a lawyer so you should rely on the likes of Amused and Robert Ross.
@ Hants | November 16, 2013 at 7:10 PM |
“He was simply saying that freedom of the press must be defended but the rights of children must be protected as required by law.”
So too is a man’s right to life. How would you feel if your life was threatened by people who were overheard making those threats and no one was brought to justice?
We can assume you are not interested in the morality of the principle involved. It is more politically appeasing to go after easy targets than people leveling threats on other people’s lives.
Balance; fwlit, I agree with you.
millertheanunnaki | November 16, 2013 at 7:34 PM |
“We can assume you are not interested in the morality of the principle involved. It is more politically appeasing to go after easy targets than people leveling threats on other people’s lives.”
Assistant Commissioner Mark Thompson’s statement in the Friday Nation made perfect sense to me.
That is an apolitical statement.