There was great rejoicing this week when some vendors in downtown Kingston heard the news that five-year-old Mekalia Manasseh, who was reported missing from home in Great Pond, St Ann, since Monday, returned home safely on Tuesday.

Family members reported that they were inside the house when they heard the little girl calling for her mother sometime after 11 p.m.

"To tell you the truth, I feel so good to hear that the little girl is alive," one woman remarked.

"If they had killed the child, it would be so sad because she has done no harm to anyone," a man sitting nearby added.

"I don't know what is wrong with these evil and wicked perverts in this country, why they are sexually molesting and killing our children. I just hope they did not sexually molest that little girl," another women said.

hang sex offenders

"But you know, what really impresses me is how the citizens came out in large numbers to help to search for the child. Jamaicans should unite like that at all times," the man said.

One woman who was busy selling her goods, stopped for a few seconds to say "I think they should lynch or hang sex offenders".

The man, who was obviously in disagreement with her view, shouted: "Hang them, you know how many innocent men in a prison because they tell lies on them? Look at the case which I read about in the newspaper recently where the 12-year-old girl told lies on a man when it was her stepfather who had molested her. The man spent two years in custody, faced a trial, but luckily for him, he was not convicted because the jury could not come to a verdict and a new trial was ordered. The girl spoke the truth after the first trial. The real offender was arrested and charged and the innocent man freed".

"I am sorry for that man, but is real rapists I am saying should be hanged because evey year we celebrate Child Month but it means nothing to rapists and killers," the woman emphasised.

During Child Month, special appeals are made through lectures, addresses and advertisements for the citizens to join in the fight against child abuse and to ensure that such cases are reported to the police.

Last week Saturday, Director of Public Prosecutions Paula Llewellyn, QC, addressed a large gathering at the Riverton Meadows Seventh-day Adventist Church on the responsibility of the citizens to protect children from all types of abuses and to ensure that they report cases. She implored the gathering not to turn a blind eye because child abuse was everybody's problem.

There are several cases in which adults have been arrested and charged for failure to report cases of child abuse, and some of them have been convicted and sent to prison.