Civil group releases research on missing children

[evanovitch]

Civil group releases research on missing children
Wednesday, 11 November 2009

Jamaica's Missing Children's Support Programme Wednesday released worrying findings about the nation's children.

The organisation, an offshoot of the Hear the Children's Cry Committee, published disturbing figures gleaned from six months of intensive research and counseling.

<span style="font-weight: bold">Thousands of children gone </span>

<span style="font-weight: bold">The research showed that 1,206 Jamaican children, from zero to 18 years, have been reported missing between January and September.</span>

At a press conference, Convener of the Hear the Children's Cry Committee, Betty Ann Blaine said the numbers for the 9 month period far outstripped the 960 children reported missing for the entire 2008.

Quoting statistics from the National Intelligence Bureau (NIB) and the Police Constabulary Communication Network (CCN), Mrs. Blaine said between January and September, 1,743 persons had been reported missing in Jamaica.

Of these, 69% were children.

It was also revealed that 55% or 676 children had returned home; three were deceased and 537 or 43% were still missing.

She also noted that NIB and CCN figures from January to July 2009 revealed that Kingston and St. Andrew and St Catherine had reported the highest numbers of missing children - with 241 and 254 respectively.

In fact, children had gone missing in every single parish.

Portland with 16 children missing and St Mary with 23, recorded the lowest figures in the study.

<span style="font-weight: bold">Teens most vulnerable </span>

A breakdown of figures by age for the same period this year revealed that 16 year old teens had been most vulnerable.

Two hundred and seventy-five children in that age group were reported missing, although the disappearances began to increase from the age of 12.

The Missing Children's Support Programme team also observed an increase in missing children reports during the summer, beginning in June with 170 and peaking in July at 184.

At least 100 children had been reported missing during every one of the nine months.

The figures for March were lowest at 100 reports.

<span style="font-weight: bold">Mrs. Blaine also raised concern that some of the children reported missing have returned home pregnant, while others had sexually transmitted infections.</span>

A number have returned home and then disappeared again.

Mrs. Blaine blamed this phenomenon on familial and economic factors.

She called on the government to set up special Police units, dedicated to finding missing children.

&quot;Hear the Children's Cry is calling for the establishment of a special unit within the police force that will be 100% dedicated to the problem of missing and abducted children and that a part of that entity, each regional police division must also have a missing children's unit,&quot; Ms. Blaine said.

In the meantime, the number of missing children still unaccounted remains a major concern for the group.

<span style="font-weight: bold">According to the research, 537 of the 1,206 reported missing between January to September this year have not been heard from since.</span>
&quot;<span style="font-style: italic">Are those children victims of sexual or other types of violence? Are those children victims of a sex trade? Are they victims of human trafficking? Are there child abduction rings operating in Jamaica? Do we have pedophiles amongst us and if we do what do we know about them? Do we know anything about the profiles of pedophiles in Jamaica? Do we have serial killers in Jamaica who target children? These are all questions that we ask and the problem is that we don't have any of the answers,&quot; she said</span>.

Mrs. Blaine reported that the team had little success with an initiative that was launched to confirm that the children were actually still missing.

She noted that volunteers and team members had made 960 telephone calls to the numbers of family members or guardians recorded on the reports they had made.

However, a frustrating 450 of these calls elicited no information.

[diabolical_Tanya]

Re: Civil group releases research on missing children

Body of boy, 10, found with mouth gagged, hands bound

Boy's classmates, teachers to get counselling

Everard Owen

Thursday, November 12, 2009

PORT ANTONIO, Portland - Ten-year-old Anthony &quot;Papa&quot; Durant would have been in school today, sitting in his usual spot close to the teacher at the front of the class. But school is a place the young lad, affectionately called Papa, will never visit again.

Near midday yesterday, the body of the grade five Port Antonio primary student, who has been missing since Sunday, was found in a gully in the community of Prospect, his mouth gagged and his hands bound behind him.




Residents, who stumbled upon the body were yesterday reeling from the gruesome find. None of them were willing to speak directly with the Observer but the conversations they had among themselves exposed their feelings.

&quot;Him shouldn't dead like that,&quot; one of them was overheard saying.

&quot;Is just a little boy,&quot; said another.

News of Durant's death wasn't any easier on the school where grief counselling will begin for both students and teachers today.

The young boy is known to frequent the streets of Port Antonio, begging, but his mother, Veronica Allen, and his stepfather, Delroy Scott, said he would usually return home and would not skip school.

Allen is unemployed and Scott sells fruits for a living.

Allen said her son was out on the streets Sunday evening but that he later came home.

&quot;...Sunday night me and him sit down and mi seh 'do not move because you have to go to school' but when me look around, him disappear. Me walk up and down a look fi him, even to Hope Bay and no find him,&quot; she said.

She said she reported the matter to the police on the same night and that searches as far as Norwich, a community about four kilometres away, didn't turn up anything.

&quot;Last night (Tuesday night) was the last time we reported him missing to the police and me tell the lady seh dem haffi go look fi him and today mi hear seh dem find him dead,&quot; Scott told the Observer.

Up to press time, police did not confirm allegations that the boy had been sodomised but word on the street is that on Sunday Durant left with two boys in a car and did not return home.

His death brings to 19, the number of murders committed in Portland since the start of the year.

[diabolical_Tanya]

Hear the Girls Cry

Hear the girls' cry!

Group wants help for inner-city teens targeted by 'dons'

BY COREY ROBINSON Observer staff reporter [email protected]

Thursday, November 12, 2009

ARMED with six months of painful research, Betty-Ann Blaine yesterday made an impassioned plea to help families of teenaged girls held hostage by inner-city thugs, who impregnate or infect them with sexually transmitted diseases.

&quot;It is increasingly difficult to deal with this problem of missing children within a broader climate of violence and self-governing enclaves - areas that are outside of the reach of even law enforcement,&quot; said Blaine, the executive director of the lobby group, Hear the Children's Cry.
Blaine made her stirring appeal at a press conference at the Pegasus Hotel in New Kingston, where she disclosed findings of a six-month research and counselling programme with families from which children had gone missing.

&quot;There was one case where a mother's 14-year-old daughter had gone missing. She knew where the child was but she said: 'Miss Blaine, we can't go for the child because if we ever go for her, the don is going to kill me'.

&quot;In another case, a mother reported her child missing, knowing that the child really wasn't. She (mother) had in fact sent her child to hide away with a relative in rural Jamaica because she said the don was 'ready' for her daughter. The missing report was really to make it appear bonafide,&quot; added Blaine who could not hide her disgust.

Blaine said statistics from the National Intelligence Bureau, the Constabulary Communication Network, as well as other sources, revealed that of the 1,743 persons reported missing between January and September this year, 1,206 were children.

She said three of the children had been confirmed murdered while 537 have never been heard from again. She said 676 had returned home.

The Corporate Area and St Catherine account for most of the cases of missing children with 241 and 254, respectively. St James, Clarendon and Manchester, rounded off the top five parishes with 75, 67, and 60.

&quot;This issue of missing children is a major problem and has reached epidemic proportions. Are these children being trafficked? Are there abduction rings operating here?&quot; asked Blaine. &quot;We are calling on the Government to immediately address the issue; set up special police units dedicated to investigate missing children cases, and have these units operating in each (police) division.&quot;

Deputy Superintendent Paulette Green of the National Investigation Bureau immediately supported Blaine's call for a special unit to investigate missing persons cases, saying that it would bring focus to the issue as the police were kept busy investigating more serious crimes. Deputy Superintendent But Herfa Beckford, head of the Centre for the Investigation of Sexual Offences and Child Abuse (CISOCA), told the Observer in a telephone interview that while she had heard about occasions where girls were being held hostage by thugs, there was usually not enough evidence for the police to work with.

&quot;People will say things but from a police perspective we cannot work off hearsay,&quot; Beckford said.

The Jamaica Yellow Pages donated more than $2.5 million towards the research conducted by Blaine's group.

[blugiant]

Re: Hear the Girls Cry

jamaica guv shood shame aff demselves

pnp ann jlp ar big disgrace fii ignorinn jamaica missing yuths

fiyah ann more fiyah affii bunn

[evanovitch]

Re: Hear the Girls Cry

couple years bak i opined on here, the eventual fallout on Jcan society, especially di youth, of the preoccupation with sex an all tings sexual...here it is...i also said that it was not farfetched , dat as the usual spots for child sexual perversions , dried up due to terrorism , dat Ja would , by virtue of its open borders, be convenient for said perverts to target....

all wat goin awn is not juss we homegrown..we have shown our children dat anyone who come wid a camera r a gift is safe to approach...not farfetched indeed

[WiseJamaican]

Re: Hear the Girls Cry

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: blakkgiant</div><div class="ubbcode-body">jamaica guv shood shame aff demselves

pnp ann jlp ar big disgrace fii ignorinn jamaica missing yuths

fiyah ann more fiyah affii bunn </div></div>

Every time we blame the Officials why don't we look at ourselves see what we are teaching our children and the life we are living as Parents. P.N.P. and J.L.P. cannot do everything.

[WiseJamaican]

Re: Civil group releases research on missing children

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: Shebada</div><div class="ubbcode-body"> Body of boy, 10, found with mouth gagged, hands bound

Boy's classmates, teachers to get counselling

Everard Owen

Thursday, November 12, 2009

PORT ANTONIO, Portland - Ten-year-old Anthony &quot;Papa&quot; Durant would have been in school today, sitting in his usual spot close to the teacher at the front of the class. But school is a place the young lad, affectionately called Papa, will never visit again.

Near midday yesterday, the body of the grade five Port Antonio primary student, who has been missing since Sunday, was found in a gully in the community of Prospect, his mouth gagged and his hands bound behind him.




Residents, who stumbled upon the body were yesterday reeling from the gruesome find. None of them were willing to speak directly with the Observer but the conversations they had among themselves exposed their feelings.

&quot;Him shouldn't dead like that,&quot; one of them was overheard saying.

&quot;Is just a little boy,&quot; said another.

News of Durant's death wasn't any easier on the school where grief counselling will begin for both students and teachers today.

The young boy is known to frequent the streets of Port Antonio, begging, but his mother, Veronica Allen, and his stepfather, Delroy Scott, said he would usually return home and would not skip school.

Allen is unemployed and Scott sells fruits for a living.

Allen said her son was out on the streets Sunday evening but that he later came home.

&quot;...Sunday night me and him sit down and mi seh 'do not move because you have to go to school' but when me look around, him disappear. Me walk up and down a look fi him, even to Hope Bay and no find him,&quot; she said.

She said she reported the matter to the police on the same night and that searches as far as Norwich, a community about four kilometres away, didn't turn up anything.

&quot;Last night (Tuesday night) was the last time we reported him missing to the police and me tell the lady seh dem haffi go look fi him and today mi hear seh dem find him dead,&quot; Scott told the Observer.

Up to press time, police did not confirm allegations that the boy had been sodomised but word on the street is that on Sunday Durant left with two boys in a car and did not return home.

His death brings to 19, the number of murders committed in Portland since the start of the year.

</div></div>

These parents need to be placed in prison. How can you send your 10yr to beg. She has to hustle while the stepfather not working. It is time women run way the worthless man dem. Now she lose her son.

[blugiant]

Re: Hear the Girls Cry

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: evanovitch</div><div class="ubbcode-body">couple years bak i opined on here, the eventual fallout on Jcan society, especially di youth, of the preoccupation with sex an all tings sexual...here it is...i also said that it was not farfetched , dat as the usual spots for child sexual perversions , dried up due to terrorism , dat Ja would , by virtue of its open borders, be convenient for said perverts to target....

all wat goin awn is not juss we homegrown..we have shown our children dat anyone who come wid a camera r a gift is safe to approach...not farfetched indeed </div></div>

seeth deh. itt remine mii aff dat minister ann dem gurl tekkinn tripp widd da man fii money. too much slackness a gawn. likkle gurls ann bwoys shood natt bee runninn upp too farren peeps ann yaawdee wey ave sintinn begginn.

itt like dat sunshine homosexual church wey tryinn fii bigg upp homosexualitee inn ja. y wood wan mzungu homosexual church made upp aff moaslee middle age mzungu homosexuals males bee soo intarested inn makinn jamaica more homo friendlee

[jah_yout]

Re: Hear the Girls Cry

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: WiseJamaican</div><div class="ubbcode-body"><div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: blakkgiant</div><div class="ubbcode-body">jamaica guv shood shame aff demselves

pnp ann jlp ar big disgrace fii ignorinn jamaica missing yuths

fiyah ann more fiyah affii bunn </div></div>

Every time we blame the Officials why don't we look at ourselves see what we are teaching our children and the life we are living as Parents. P.N.P. and J.L.P. cannot do everything. </div></div>

true, but they set the tone;
in my opinion none of the political leaders of jamaica since the 1980's can be considered a nationalist...
they have been internationalists- they give more value to foreign lives than they do to j'can lives...with this the case it is easy to lure children or just grab them-
the gov't can't do everything but they also don't have to make it so obvious that the lives of ordinary j'cans are not highly valued

[blugiant]

Re: Hear the Girls Cry

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: WiseJamaican</div><div class="ubbcode-body"><div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: blakkgiant</div><div class="ubbcode-body">jamaica guv shood shame aff demselves

pnp ann jlp ar big disgrace fii ignorinn jamaica missing yuths

fiyah ann more fiyah affii bunn </div></div>

Every time we blame the Officials why don't we look at ourselves see what we are teaching our children and the life we are living as Parents. P.N.P. and J.L.P. cannot do everything. </div></div>

mii luv wen peeps trii fii chatt bout blaminn da parents furst wen da mount aff yuths missinn pint too a breakdunn aff ja civil societee ann da guv failinn da ppeps. da mount aff missinn yuths iss systemic issue ann da guv ann de politrixxstahs affii bear dem respansibilitee cah dem runninn babylon ting

[evanovitch]

A dirty state of affairs

A dirty state of affairs



Sunday, November 15, 2009

Our stomachs are still churning at the information that teenaged girls are being held hostage by inner-city thugs, aka 'dons', who sexually abuse, impregnate and infect them with Sexually Transmitted Diseases (STDs) at will.

According to last Thursday's edition of our daily, Miss Betty-Ann Blaine, convener of the Hear the Children's Cry lobby group, has assembled six months of research concerning cases in which dons simply take these teenaged girls from their families and use them for sex.

As we understand it, the destinies of these girls are cast years before they come to what these dons decide is the age of sexual readiness. It works, we are told, like this: The dons watch the girls growing up in the community and then as soon as they hit puberty they simply send for them. In many instances the parents comply, again we are told, out of fear for their lives. Others who are more alert keep their daughters as long as they dare and then send them away to live with relatives or report them missing in order to escape the dirty influences of these dons.

Unlike Deputy Superintendent Herfa Beckford, head of the Centre for the Investigation of Sexual Offences and Child Abuse, we do not think that there is not enough evidence on which the police can act in these scenarios.

Indeed, according to the provisions of the Child Care and Protection Act, which makes it mandatory for these and other instances of abuse to be reported, they, along with their parents, are parties to these crimes by virtue of their inactivity.

And we believe Superintendent Beckford should really be called upon to explain how such information as outlined by Miss Blaine can be dismissed as useless hearsay, especially within the context of a police force that has repeatedly declared how much it depends on the public for information, leads and clues.

For from where we sit, it seems clear that if information reaches the police that such and such a don is holding such and such a teenager as a sex slave, the least the police could do is go and find out if it is true. And if it is, then an arrest should be made and justice allowed to take its course.

But we all know Superintendent Beckford's explanation is ludicrous.
The truth is that successive administrations have brazenly embraced the culture of the dons, shielding them from the laws that would erode the criminal influence they wield over the young and vulnerable who are unfortunate enough to be born within the nasty little republics known as garrisons and which were created by the sick politics of division.

This space again asks the question: What do we - the survivors who are able, for the time being, to exist in bubble of what is left of civilised society - do?

Do we abandon the civilised, constitutionally endorsed channels of communication and take to the streets to make our point, like the employees of the Sangster International Airport whose story is reported in yesterday's edition?

Or do we press along in the hope that more people of influence, like former police commissioner Rear Hardley Lewin, will speak out against the undeniable link between the politicians and the crime that have all but enslaved all of us?

It's clearly a time for some serious decision-making.