A number of police officers will shortly be sitting down with pupils attending schools in their divisions to teach them how to fight back against sexual predators.

Officers from the St Andrew North and St Andrew South Police Divisions told the Sunday Observer that they would be intensifying their efforts to sensitise children on how to protect themselves, and are hoping other officials across the island will follow.

Ambassador to the United States, Anthony Johnson (right), having a few words with some members of the Jamaican team to the recent Olympic Games in Beijing, China, at the Miami International Airport on October 2, before their departure for home and the welcome reception on October 3 at the Norman Manley International Airport. Consul-General, Sandra Grant Griffiths, was also at the airport to see them off. (Photo: JIS)

This move follows mounting concerns about the number of recent reports about child murders. Police statistics show that more than 50 children have been murdered since the start of the year, while several others have been raped or molested.

"We are really concerned about the number of reported murders - especially those of children," Superintendent Anthony Morris told the Sunday Observer. "To address this problem, we are putting together a number of initiatives to educate and sensitise children from a number of schools in the St Andrew North Police Division."

Some of the schools to be targeted include Calabar and Oberlin high, Constant Spring All-Age, among others.
Deputy Superintendent Lennox Harper of the St Andrew South Police Division said a similar initiative would be undertaken in his area.

"Police in St Andrew South are as equally concerned about what is happening (to the children)," he said.

"Already, there are programmes such as the Safe Schools Programme taking place in a number of schools, but we will definitely be stepping up our efforts to reach out to children from more schools," DSP Harper said.

According to the Harper, some of the schools in that division to be targeted include Penwood and Norman Manley high and Swallowfield All-Age, among others.

"We want to go into these schools to educate children about how to protect themselves; things such as not accepting gifts, or taking lifts from strangers, how to conduct themselves while on the streets, among other things," Harper said.

Over the past month, several brutal child murders have rocked the nation, among them the gruesome find of 11-year-old Aamir Dwight Scott's dismembered body in a bag in bushes in Sandside, St Mary, on September 16. Aamir, a student of Trinity Primary School, disappeared on the afternoon of September 14 after he went to visit friends.

Last Sunday, the decomposed remains of a headless body believed to be that of Ananda Dean, an 11-year-old seventh grade student of Swallowfield All-Age School, were found on the Cyprus Hall Main Road in Red Hills, St Andrew.

Ananda went missing on September 17. She was last seen in the Half-Way-Tree Transport Centre, making her way home from school.

Forensic experts, however, say they are to conduct DNA tests to determine whether it was her.

The police have said that the cases of children being murdered were causing some serious concerns for law officials, not just in the St Andrew South Police Division, but right across the island.

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