The issue of underage girls being employed in the sex industry has once again come to the fore.

In a story published in THE STAR of last Saturday, the St Catherine Police warned operators of exotic clubs to refrain from employing young girls. It is no secret that many young girls are working in an industry that was undoubtedly designed for adults only.

While the primary responsibility is on the owners of these establishments to check the ages of their employees and to turn away young girls, we must also blame the parents of these children. We are aware that many of these young girls are runaways and so their parents are not necessarily aware of their activities. However, there are others whose parents know what they are doing and simply stand by and allow it to continue. In these cases, the parents should face the full force of the law.

The police must also take some amount of blame as there is no way that they could be unaware of these crimes. Many people in the society know that this is a reality, how then could it have slipped the police for so long? Serious and organised raids need to be carried out in many of these exotic clubs and proper proof of identification must be demanded from the workers.

We cannot stress enough that parents need to pay attention to their children's behaviour and we also cannot over-emphasise the fact that club owners should not be blinded by the chance to make money, but be guided by proper values and morals.