CHILDREN’S Advocate Mary Clarke is warning employees of early childhood institutions (ECIs) not to dismiss sexual acts between their charges, as this could be indicative of sexual abuse which they are bound by the Child Care and Protection Act to report or face imprisonment or fines of up to $500,000.

Early childhood institutions are defined as any place that cares for four or more children under the age of six years for up to six hours per day. This includes nurseries, centres or homes which offer day care, basic schools, kindergartens, pre-schools and infant schools.

Clarke’s call stemmed from an article reported in last Sunday’s Observer in which a Ministry of Health official reported that the ministryv had been receiving reports of infants performing oral sex and other sex acts on each other while at school.

“We have to make sure that these infants are not exhibiting behaviour related from their own experience with child abuse,” she told the Sunday Observer.

Teachers, she said, can get into serious problems if they suspect abuse and do nothing about it.

“I am reminding these persons of their obligation to report this matter,” the Children’s Advocate said.

Clarke said parental responsibility is also very important as parents have the primary responsibility for protecting their children. Citing the Child Care and Protection Act, Clarke said a family is the preferred environment for the care and upbringing of children.

She said her office is concerned about the issues in the basic schools and would be working with organisations to address this, among other problems.

“We have to follow up on this because this is almost a form of abuse to have our children involved in what they do not understand and what they probably cannot even control,” she said.

Clarke said another area they would be giving serious attention to is that of child pornography, which is on the increase.

But Dr Maureen Samms Vaughn, chairman of the Early Childhood Commission, while also urging early childhood workers to report suspected cases of sexual abuse warned that normal sexual behaviour should never be misinterpreted as anything else.

“Persons sometimes interpret normal behaviour as something it is not,” she said, adding we have to ensure that adults understand what is normal sexual behaviour.

She said children will want to touch each other, however, adults may respond in a way to make them believe that investigating their body is wrong when it is not.

Samms Vaughn said infants cannot be sexually active because they would have to have the capability to interpret sex, which they don’t.

As for the student who was caught performing oral sex on her fellow classmate, Samms Vaughn said that would be considered as an extreme kind of behaviour.

“That child would have to be exposed to things she shouldn’t or has been sexually abused,” she said.

In such instances, Samms Vaughn said, all early childhood institutions which observe children engaging in such conduct should report the matter to the Children Development Agency (CDA) as well as the Early Childhood Commission for further investigation to take place.

She noted that, to date, they are yet to receive any such reports, as the legislation to provide sanctions to address this issue would not be enacted before a few months from now.

She explained that once a report is received, the CDA is responsible for investigating the home environment and what the child is exposed to or whether they are being sexually abused. The Early Childhood Commission, on the other hand, is responsible for investigating the institution to determine if the abuse is happening there.

Ava Gayle Gardener, anthropologist and lawyer, noted that in looking at the Child Care and Protection Act, one has to consider the intention of the law as the legislation is quite recent.

While noting that the primary objective is to protect the child and ensure the best interest is served, she said looking at how the law will be applied effectively is the primary issue.

“In a situation like this we have to consider who is the caregiver…when it is a family then it is the parent or guardian, and in a Children’s Home it is the staff and so liability should first be there. Secondary level, she added, should be the school or nursery staff .

“When you look at who should be held criminally liable for failing to report, you have to look at the purpose it will serve to criminally prosecute,” she said, adding will it reduce incidents and ensure children are more protected, these are the questions we need to ask,” she said.

She added that the first line of defence should be for emphasis to be placed on sensitisation of early childhood staff in helping them detect that something is wrong as it will not always obvious.

Responding to the many requests made by basic schools for the Ministry of Health officials to give sex education talks to the infants, Samms Vaughn said, at that age the children do not need sex education but to be engaged in a discussion on normal sex development.

As such, she said a curriculum is being worked on to train early childhood teachers on how to discuss sex development with their very small charge instead of dealing with it in a negative way.

“A little girl was beaten at school for looking at another boy’s penis while he looked at her vagina, and so when she was sexually abused she never told anyone because she thought she would have been beaten again,” Samms Vaughn said.

But while the discussions swirled around the sexual behaviour of the children in basic schools, Evadney Vonner, assistant chief education officer at the Ministry of Education, said while she had heard about the article, she was yet to read it. As a result, she said she could not comment on what plans, if any, the ministry had in place to address the issue.

However, Monica Holness assistant chief education officer in the Guidance and Counselling Unit, told the Sunday Observer that the ministry recently completed a pilot of its family life education programme in some basic schools. The programme, she explained, was initially intended for primary, all age and high school students, but was taken into the basic schools to address the needs there.

“We are the first in the Caribbean to develop a health and family life education curriculum at that level and it has received very good review from the teachers, she said.

The Health and Family Life education looks at four major themes, namely sexuality and sexual health, self and self-esteem, eating right and fitness and environmental issues.

She said given the success of the pilots in the school, there are plans to fully roll out the programme in some other basic schools.

Dr Carolyn Pinnock, vice-president of the Pediatric Association of Jamaica, in a letter to the Observer, noted that there had been many cries of shock and disbelief to the article, as well as threats, such as:’if it were my child…’

This aside, she said children are inherently curious, and sexual play is a normal part of development.

“When a child says ‘show me yours and I will show you mine’, that is not deviant behaviour,” Pinnock said.

She added that sexual abuse is when a child is exposed to activities that he or she is not developed enough for, when they are forced or coerced into participating in sexual activities involving touch or penetration or when the participant is not at the same developmental or age level as the child.

She noted that it is unfortunate just how many children, who having been abused will turn on their peers with abnormal learnt behaviour and expose other children to abusive actions.

“The important risk in deviant sexual behaviour which I have not heard coming out in the hue and cry of the public is the easy access to sexual material in their own homes,” Pinnock added.