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JAMAICA-GLEANER EDITORS' FORUM - Child sex abuse rife - Attacks on minors at alarming levels - Rights advocates call for task force
CLAIMING A growing problem of sexual and other abuse of minors, children's rights activist, Betty-Ann Blaine, yesterday called for the establishment of a national task force to begin to address this deepening crisis.
"We have to be alarmed," Mrs. Blaine, the convenor of the organisation, Hear the Children's Cry, told a Gleaner Editors' Forum at the company's North Street offices, downtown Kingston. "This country is in a crisis as far as our children are concerned and the sexual violence against our children."
Mrs. Blaine's call came against the backdrop of a proposal from the Senate for mandatory 25-year jail sentences against child molesters and other convicts of rape as well as for a general strengthening of the child protection law to give more power to the Children's Advocate.
The proposal for tougher action against child abusers, placed on the table by government Senator Norman Grant, was triggered by the apparently rising incidence of murder and rape of children. For instance, there were 105 reported cases of the murder of minors last year and more than 20 so far this year. At yesterday's Gleaner Editors' Forum, Mrs. Blaine said that there were close to 500 reported cases of rape against children in 2005.
But Dr. Grace Kelly, the president of the Association of Guidance Counsellors, insisted that reported rapes against children do not reflect the real situation.
"The actual figure is about six times the number of reported cases," Dr. Kelly estimated.
NOT ONLY GIRLS
According to the psychologist, it is not only girls, but boys too, who are the subject of sexual abuse and many of these children, without the appropriate interventions, will grow into dysfunctional adults.
Sexual predators, Dr. Kelly said, used several, sometimes ingenious methods to lure children.
Mrs. Blaine said that information technology systems, including the Internet, were now being used in Jamaica to lure child sex victims. She related one recent case in which she became involved.
"A principal of a primary and junior high school in Kingston called me to say that five teenage girls from her school, all under 16-years-old, had been lured into oral sex during the middle of the day, having gone onto a chat room and having apparently made a connection with some man through text messages," she said.
SON MOLESTED
In another incident, Mrs. Blaine told of how she was called by the parent of a six-year-old boy, distressed that her son had been molested by an older man at a private school.
In another case, she said, the mother of a 13-year-old girl went home on Wednesday and found her in bed with a man. The child was bound with another school girl.
Mrs. Blaine did not outline the terms of reference for her proposed task force or say how it might be different from relatively recent efforts by the government to address the problem of sexual and other abuse of children.
In 2003, for example the government set up a committee, headed by retired civil servant, Sadie Keating, to investigate sexual abuses at government and private children's homes and places of safety after a public campaign by Kay Osborne, a Jamaican woman who had attempted to adopt a child from a church-run home.
Keating's report confirmed Osborne's argument that the small boy was involved in bestiality with dogs and other sexual acts at the home, but made clear that such abuse was not confined to a single institution.
"By the time some of these juveniles enter the institutions, their sexual appetite is well-established," Keating said in her report. "In order to find sexual release they often become sexual predators by initiating younger victims when they cannot find willing bedfellows."
Ms. Osborne's outcry, and the backing she received by the Keating report, caused the government to strengthen the then nascent Child Development Agency (CDA) headed by former University of the West Indies academic, Allison Anderson.
Ms. Anderson has spearheaded a reform of children's homes and places of safety, often hiring new staff and improving training.
But Mrs. Blaine suggested that the problem runs far deeper and was in need for broader and urgent action.
"We need to call for a national task force for action against sexual abuse of our children," she said. "... I expect the response to be like a category five hurricane approaching Jamaica (but) I don't get the sense that we recognise that there is a crisis and we are responding in a commensurate way."
Mrs. Blaine said the task force cannot be just another group of people coming together to talk. "It has to be action based with action steps, with time line and with some way of monitoring what is happening," she said.
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JAMAICA-GLEANER EDITORS' FORUM - Child sex abuse rife - Attacks on minors at alarming levels - Rights advocates call for task force
CLAIMING A growing problem of sexual and other abuse of minors, children's rights activist, Betty-Ann Blaine, yesterday called for the establishment of a national task force to begin to address this deepening crisis.
"We have to be alarmed," Mrs. Blaine, the convenor of the organisation, Hear the Children's Cry, told a Gleaner Editors' Forum at the company's North Street offices, downtown Kingston. "This country is in a crisis as far as our children are concerned and the sexual violence against our children."
Mrs. Blaine's call came against the backdrop of a proposal from the Senate for mandatory 25-year jail sentences against child molesters and other convicts of rape as well as for a general strengthening of the child protection law to give more power to the Children's Advocate.
The proposal for tougher action against child abusers, placed on the table by government Senator Norman Grant, was triggered by the apparently rising incidence of murder and rape of children. For instance, there were 105 reported cases of the murder of minors last year and more than 20 so far this year. At yesterday's Gleaner Editors' Forum, Mrs. Blaine said that there were close to 500 reported cases of rape against children in 2005.
But Dr. Grace Kelly, the president of the Association of Guidance Counsellors, insisted that reported rapes against children do not reflect the real situation.
"The actual figure is about six times the number of reported cases," Dr. Kelly estimated.
NOT ONLY GIRLS
According to the psychologist, it is not only girls, but boys too, who are the subject of sexual abuse and many of these children, without the appropriate interventions, will grow into dysfunctional adults.
Sexual predators, Dr. Kelly said, used several, sometimes ingenious methods to lure children.
Mrs. Blaine said that information technology systems, including the Internet, were now being used in Jamaica to lure child sex victims. She related one recent case in which she became involved.
"A principal of a primary and junior high school in Kingston called me to say that five teenage girls from her school, all under 16-years-old, had been lured into oral sex during the middle of the day, having gone onto a chat room and having apparently made a connection with some man through text messages," she said.
SON MOLESTED
In another incident, Mrs. Blaine told of how she was called by the parent of a six-year-old boy, distressed that her son had been molested by an older man at a private school.
In another case, she said, the mother of a 13-year-old girl went home on Wednesday and found her in bed with a man. The child was bound with another school girl.
Mrs. Blaine did not outline the terms of reference for her proposed task force or say how it might be different from relatively recent efforts by the government to address the problem of sexual and other abuse of children.
In 2003, for example the government set up a committee, headed by retired civil servant, Sadie Keating, to investigate sexual abuses at government and private children's homes and places of safety after a public campaign by Kay Osborne, a Jamaican woman who had attempted to adopt a child from a church-run home.
Keating's report confirmed Osborne's argument that the small boy was involved in bestiality with dogs and other sexual acts at the home, but made clear that such abuse was not confined to a single institution.
"By the time some of these juveniles enter the institutions, their sexual appetite is well-established," Keating said in her report. "In order to find sexual release they often become sexual predators by initiating younger victims when they cannot find willing bedfellows."
Ms. Osborne's outcry, and the backing she received by the Keating report, caused the government to strengthen the then nascent Child Development Agency (CDA) headed by former University of the West Indies academic, Allison Anderson.
Ms. Anderson has spearheaded a reform of children's homes and places of safety, often hiring new staff and improving training.
But Mrs. Blaine suggested that the problem runs far deeper and was in need for broader and urgent action.
"We need to call for a national task force for action against sexual abuse of our children," she said. "... I expect the response to be like a category five hurricane approaching Jamaica (but) I don't get the sense that we recognise that there is a crisis and we are responding in a commensurate way."
Mrs. Blaine said the task force cannot be just another group of people coming together to talk. "It has to be action based with action steps, with time line and with some way of monitoring what is happening," she said.
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