IN an environment where children’s organisations rise and fall in relatively short time frames, Hear The Children’s Cry founder Betty Ann Blaine is celebrating the survival of the non-governmental entity for the last 20 years.

However, despite the organisation tirelessly advocating for and realising the implementation of numerous laws aimed at protecting children, Blaine expressed dissatisfaction that after two decades the crises involving children’s affairs have not abated. In fact, she believes the plight of children has worsened. Blaine condemned the rampant murders, abuse and neglect of children which is curently occuring to a higher degree than ever before.

“Hear the Children’s Cry, we are really happy that we have survived 20 years. We have seen children’s organisations come and go in this country.

“We have seen Save the Children Fund, Hope for Children, Jamaica Foundation for Children and many other non-governmental organisations (NGOs) disbanded, largely because of a lack of funding to keep the organisations going. NGOs depend on charitable donations.

“We started in 2002 out of a crisis. The year prior to that, eight children had been murdered within a period of months, some in Kingston and one or two in other parishes. We mobilised, got children from primary and high schools to march in protest. That was the genesis, and I have to tell you that after 20 years we are still in this crisis of not being able to protect children adequately.”

Blaine highlighted that as a country, some gains have been made. Some of these achievements, she pointed out, include an improvement in the child mortality rate and school attendance; the passing of the Child Care and Protection Act; child pornography, anti-trafficking and cybercrime legislation; as well as the creation of the Ananda Alert for missing children, the Office of the Children’s Advocate and a proposed sex offenders’ registry.

“All of these things we fought for and we got. It is important that we recognise those gains. The other major thing was the introduction of the Ananda Alert — the rapid response system for children who are abducted or go missing. I personally named it Ananda Alert.

“Another positive thing is that we improved school attendance rates. Prior to COVID-19 you had something like 85 per cent of Jamaican children of school age attending school. With Ananda Alert I was thinking at the time about America’s Amber Alert and I was saying we needed something similar.

“Regrettably, it was as a result of the abduction and murder of Ananda Dean. She was a child I knew personally. She used to come to the back of my house where I had Sunday school for children. Her abduction and murder affected me in a very personal way and it was that particular case that led Hear the Children’s Cry to begin working almost exclusively on the problem of missing and abducted children in 2009.”

Despite these commendable steps, she lamented: “By and large we have not adequately protected or provided for the children of Jamaica. Look at public transportation – they are exposed to every kind of filth and slackness in the music. We have not even provided basic transportation for our children to go to school or to move around the society.

“When you look at social and cultural things for our children of the poor and working classes, we have not provided for their safety at all. There is not a month that we are not told of children murdered, sexually abused or neglected in one way or another. Increasingly, in the last 10 to 15 years, we have been fed on a steady diet of child abuse. Almost every time I get a call from a journalist it is either the child is missing, murdered or sexually molested — some bad news.”

In terms of direct success due to the work of Hear the Children’s Cry, which Blaine said has become a household name, the entity plays an active role in getting help for people with varying needs. The organisation has done workshops for law enforcement focused on trafficking [in persons].

While congratulating Hear the Children’s Cry for surviving 20 years, violence interrupter and member of the Crime Monitoring and Oversight Committee, Milton Tomlinson said he believes that during these times of crisis Blaine needs to cry out louder for children and their rights altogether.

Tomlinson has spent more than 15 years working with unattached youth in vulnerable communities across Jamaica and has knowledge on the root causes and issues involving them and their families.

He said he was happy that there is still an entity that lobbies for the rights and freedoms of children in the form of Hear the Children’s Cry and that some gains have been made. However, he suggested that the Ministry of Education and Youth needs to implement or strengthen whatever mechanisms exist to assess and do something about the affairs of children.

“As a part of the whole intervention we are talking about there is a need for us to have in schools, through the Ministry of Education, a committee that looks at child welfare in all senses. You may have it but it may not be as functional as it is supposed to be… Having a unit that is not properly staffed or funded to carry out the work of investigating what is happening with our children, then we are still at a loss.

“Hear the Children’s Cry is a good thing but right now I believe Betty Ann Blaine is too quiet in the face of what is happening during the pandemic.

“A lot of youths are at home hungry because parents don’t get to work in the pandemic; they instead turn to some illicit things. We love what she has been doing over the years but right now we want to hear Betty and the children a cry again,” insisted Tomlinson.