Tourism is promoted as our business. We market Barbados as a destination of sun, sea and sand – to the blind. For those who can see, we add images of scantly-clad women dancing, but we mention nothing – lest the blind be offended.
We have become a Sexually Transmitted Disease (STD) destination. The latest (2023) statistics report a total of 27,542 Barbadians infected with STDs in each 100,000 of the population [1]. With an estimated population of 267,456 in 2023, that would result in 73,663 infected persons. To put this in context, the global average is under 10,000 infected people per 100,000 population, so we are approximately three times the global average.
The latest (2023) Health Report suggests that over 80% of persons with STD are between 15 and 34 years old [2]. In 2023, there were approximately 71,816 persons between 15 and 34 years in Barbados. Therefore, over 58,930 or 82% of them are likely infected. How did we get here?
GROOMING THE YOUNG.
The national Crop Over festival was promoted as a tourist event in 1974. By the 1980s, Kadooment was promoted to tourists as a lewd carnival where scantily clad Barbadian women were willing to publicly gyrate or wuk-up on strangers while dancing carefree.
To sustain a steady supply of young people in the carnival, wuk-up was promoted as part of our cultural heritage and introduced to our children. Kiddies (Junior) Kadooment was used to groom primary school students to participate in the adult version of the carnival when they got older.
FEELING THE VIBE.
There is a global network of pedophiles who prey on children as exposed by INTERPOL. The legal age of sexual consent in Barbados in the 1980s appears to have been 13 years old (I welcome any law suggesting a higher age). Kadooment became a magnet that attracted men and women laden with STDs and willing to spread them.
It is natural to feel sexually aroused when stimulated. Pedophiles take advantage of these natural tendencies by encouraging inexperienced youth that they may become superior to their peers by surrendering to the positive vibes. They do not tell them anything about the positive virus results and unwanted pregnancies they get in exchange.
IGNORING THE ALARM.
By 1990, there were approximately 6,000 unintended pregnancies in Barbados each year with over 3,000 of them ending in abortion [3]. In that year, Dr Charles Schlosberg, a British consultant working for the Government of Barbados, publicly warned that the sexual behaviour of our young people would end in disaster. He wrote the following.
“Barbados now is like a truck driving at full speed at a cliff edge on a dark night with the lights off. If the lights are put on now, it can escape with nothing worse than a bad squeal of the breaks. If not, then the children of 2000 will look back over the wreckage of the nineties and ask with every justification, WHY?” [4].
In response, the Government fired him and appeared to pursue a policy of: (i) eliminating the social stigma associated with having an STD, (ii) allowing abortion on-demand as a birth-control measure (which is an illegal practice in the Medical Termination of Pregnancy Act), (iii) not reporting the total number of abortions in Barbados (only those at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital) and (iv) promoting homosexuality.
TOO LITTLE TOO LATE.
In 1992, the legal age of sexual consent was raised to 16, but the law provided a loophole to allow a person under 25 years old to have consensual sex with a 14 year old if they thought the minor was 16 [5]. Never-the-less, two hands seemed to be pursuing conflicting plans.
Raising the age of consent may lower the rates of unwanted pregnancies and STDs. However, (i) grooming primary school students to wuk up on strangers and (ii) providing children with unrestricted access to the Internet with no pornographic filter are foreseen not to.
The plan to eliminate stigma appeared to be to get everyone infected with an STD . In a sample study done in 2004, 81% of sampled blood donors, 84% of sampled pregnant women and 89% of sampled HIV-positive patients tested positive for the herpes virus [6]. We responded by not reporting on herpes infection rates in Ministry of Health annual reports.
QUESTIONS.
Our young people should ask: (i) why were they groomed from primary school to gyrate on strangers in public, with the sorry excuse that it was our national dance, (ii) for whose pleasure were they groomed and (iii) was the explosion of STDs, unwanted pregnancies and abortions a fair exchange for increased tourist arrivals.
They are unlikely to get any official response because the party must go on – at their expense. They are pawns in someone’s agenda. They were groomed to believe they were having fun when they felt the vibe. When the party stopped, they were expected to: (i) abort their babies, (ii) take drugs for their incurable STDs and (iii) show up willing and smiling at next year’s event.
THE AGENDA.
Fifty years of evidence suggests an agenda to sacrifice our lambs. Our: teachers, doctors, nurses, entertainers, revellers and young people are all pawns to get pregnant women to believe the lie that their children are unwanted. Since 1980, medical doctors who should do no harm, slaughtered over 100,000 of our children in the safest place designed for them – their mother’s womb, for which they earned over $100 million.
We are shamelessly advertising this year’s carnival as a drink up and wuk up event in an environment where we have de facto legalised small amounts of marijuana [7]. This can only make our young people more vulnerable. Perhaps our Kadooment messaging should be: Come for the: sun, sea, sand, sex, rum, weed – and STDs.
Grenville Phillips II is a Doctor of Engineering and Chartered Structural Engineer. He can be reached at NextParty246@gmail.com
[1] World Population Review.
[2] Barbados Health Report, 2023.
[3] The Guttmacher Institute.
[4] Nation Newspaper, 23 April 1990.
[5] Sexual Offences Act, Section 5.2b.
[6] Levett, P N. Seroprevalence of HSV-1 and HSV-2 in Barbados. 2004.
[7] Drug Abuse (Prevention and Control) (Amendment) Act – $200 penalty for up to 14 grams.
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