Founder of lobby group Hear The Children’s Cry (HTCC), Betty Ann Blaine, wants the authorities to bring to book, persons suspected of sex crimes against children.

“While we welcome the new year with hope and good intentions, Jamaica’s frightening social challenges need to be addressed seriously at the national level if our resolutions are to have any meaning at all,” Blaine said in a news release.

“We are not referring here to what many see as our most urgent challenge of crime and violence, but we are pointing instead to the ticking time bomb oftentimes feeding the killings and other crimes – the abuse which so many Jamaican children endure,” she added.

Blaine pointed to the case of the 14-year-old who gave birth to twins on Christmas morning, an event widely publicized in the media and for which criticisms were levelled at the Minister of State in the Ministry of Health and Wellness, Juliet Cuthbert-Flynn, who was photographed presenting gifts to the young mother.

Following the criticism which was also directed at the medical staff at the health facility, with persons pointing out that the young girl was below the age of consent, Cuthbert-Flynn claimed she was not aware of the mother’s age.

“A 14-year-old mother who gave birth to twins on Christmas Day leads us to ask some pressing questions, one of the main ones being, “who is the father of the babies?” said Blaine.

The Child Advocate pointed out that, sexual relations with a child under the age of 16 is illegal in Jamaica.

“Yet statistics continue to confirm that hundreds of underage Jamaican girls give birth to babies in our hospitals, including those who are barely 16, but whose children were conceived before the mother had reached the age of consent,” Blaine lamented.

She pointed to a statement from the health and wellness ministry which was reported in the media on December 27 and which contained among other things, “this surprising statement”: “These young mothers are required to make a report to the Centre for the Investigation of Sexual Offences and Child Abuse (CISOCA) and the clinic partners with the VJH (Victoria Jubilee Hospital) Social Work Department and the Women’s Centre as part of the standard of care for these cases”.

“Since a crime has been clearly committed with the impregnation of a minor, how could the responsibility for reporting the matter to CISOCA lie with the victim and not the responsible adults among the health team caring for her?” Blaine questioned.

“We believe that the Protection of Children Act (Childcare and Protection Act) requires far more assertive action on the part of anyone who witnesses or knows about the abuse of a child,” she stated.

Blaine said it was a sad day in Jamaica as, despite the work of CISOCA over more than two decades, it is uncommon for adult males to be prosecuted for having sex with underage girls.

“It is equally uncommon, or even rare for a woman to be prosecuted for having sex with an underage boy in our courts,” she noted.

Blaine asserted that “Jamaica’s ticking time bomb of child abuse and the inadequate social welfare system that supports it must be exposed, prioritised nationally and multi-faceted solutions found and implemented”.

She argued that “allowing the law to be broken with impunity breeds contempt, encourages the illegal activity. In the case of sex with underage children, it tells children their rights do not matter; it shows abusers they need fear no consequences”.

Blaine asserted further that the lack of enforcement of laws to protect children has created a growing culture of unaccountability and disregard for these laws, leading to an increase in cases of child abuse and exploitation.

“It continues to foster the thinking/feeling that you can do anything you want to a child with little or no consequences,” she said.

According to the Child Advocate, more light should be shed on the following:

1) The country needs to know, of the thousands of reports of child sexual abuse over the past few years, how many arrests and prosecutions have law enforcement made?

2) How many adult males have been arrested and charged for sexually abusing minors?

3) Of the number of births by minors, how many were reported by mandatory reporters, for example hospitals, clinics, doctors, etc.

4) Do we know how many of the underage mothers have returned to school, and how their children are doing?

Blaine said there was an urgent need for the authorities to work on more far-reaching and multi-faceted prevention efforts.

Meanwhile, Blaine highlighted that between 2,000 and 3,000 reports of sexual abuse are received by the National Children’s Registry each year. Additionally, she said almost 10,000 cases of child abuse were reported in 2020 of which 20 per cent or approximately 2, 480 were cases of child sexual abuse.

“The year 2021 is on pace to match 2020. From January to June 2021, there were 1,203 reports of sexual abuse of children. Statistics from the National Children’s Registry published on December 19 showed that 14,183 reports of child abuse were made to the Registry during 2022,” the Child Advocate shared.