KINGSTON, Jamaica— One thousand employees of the Jamaica Urban Transit Company (JUTC) are now being trained to help with the recovery of missing children through a partnership with the Child Protection and Family Services Agency’s (CPFSA) Ananda Alert Secretariat.

Under the initiative, drivers, conductors and dispatchers will be trained in identifying signs of child abuse, categories of missing children, identifying children who may be at-risk (runaways, abducted, otherwise exploited), handling incidents and making reports.

Chief Executive Officer at the CPFSA, Rosalee Gage-Grey said the partnership with JUTC is the first in a series of training by the Ananda Alert Secretariat to sensitise workers in the transport sector about missing children and the role they can play in the recovery process.

Gage-Grey added that the partnership was also developed in recognition of the need to embrace new strategies and synergies that aid in the safe and speedy recovery of missing children.

“The Ananda Alert Programme has a four-pronged approach: prevention, recovery, intervention and knowledge sharing. The transport sector is well-poised to assist us in much of these areas, but particularly the recovery aspect. Children take buses and taxis every day. Therefore, we believe that the partnership with the transport sector will greatly aid in our efforts to locate missing children and even further our prevention efforts,” Gage-Grey said.

Meanwhile, JUTC’s Managing Director Paul Abrahams said the partnership was quite timely as there is an urgent need for Jamaicans to protect the nation’s children.

“At the JUTC, we care about the well-being of the nation’s children. This partnership involving our frontline team will mean more eyes and ears to identify incidents of child abuse and to recover missing children with our wide network of drivers and dispatchers. Our children are our future and we must do everything we can to protect them,” Abrahams said.

Last year, 1,066 children were reported missing with 843 located; a decrease from 2019 where 1,534 children were reported missing with 1,072 located.

Gage-Grey said the numbers are still a cause for great concern as any missing child is a child in need of care and protection.