Suffer the little children

The parent in me was enraged as I read about how a five year old was left on the side of the road by a taxi driver because he did not have enough money to pay for a ride home.

I wondered if that driver was a parent, brother or uncle. I wondered how he felt as he drove off and did not bother looking back.

While he had no obligation to offer free transport, there was a moral obligation to make sure that child was not put in harm’s way … something he decided to waltz away from!

Also, why did the other adults in the taxi not club in to raise the money needed to ensure this child, who could have been mine, or even theirs, was guaranteed a safe passage home?

This in a society where our Twitter and Facebook feeds and timelines are populated with faces of innocence that has been stolen; of children who have disappeared without a trace. We continue to believe that somewhere, somehow, someone will stand up and speak for the innocent ones whose voices are drowned out by others.

As a society, we need to become brave enough to speak up when we are confronted with behaviour that leaves the heart wanting for humanity!

While we may not understand what led to the circumstances of a five-year-old child being trusted to commute home alone, even that in itself is questionable.

I could never allow my son, who is four, to walk to the park alone, even though it is in our complex. To rely solely on the notion that others will act as pseudo-parents in your absence in ridiculous, especially in the times we live in.

Was this decision taken because there was no alternative, because there was a need to be at a place of employment that would not understand parental obligation and responsibility? Was it that the parents could
not find a suitable school within a safe distance that the child could navigate their way home within view of those that know him?

Was it that one parent is absent and the other is left to play the part of mother, father, sibling and, possibly, aunt and uncle?

No matter the circumstances, this could have resulted in another tragedy we can do without.