THE alleged sexual assault of a six-year-old girl by her 11-year-old primary school peer “is obviously a failure of the village”, according to head of community health, and psychiatry at The University of the West Indies Professor Wendel Abel.

“I don’t know the specifics of the situation, except to say that children live what they learn and what they see on a daily basis, and it just speaks to the overexposure, to the fact that the society is an oversexualised society, overexposed to violence and so on, and that really we need to bring up our children to be able to behave in age-appropriate ways,” said Abel, who was the guest speaker at GraceKennedy Foundation’s Annual Lecture on Wednesday.

Abel, who delivered his lecture titled ‘Breaking the Cycle on Childhood Trauma’ — in which he explored the effects of childhood trauma and strategies for healing — was responding to a question posed anonymously, following his presentation, about the possible causes and interventions for the offending child.

The alleged incident reportedly took place at a Corporate Area school on Tuesday, March 11.

According to the Child Protection and Family Services Agency (CPFSA), its investigations showed that the male student pulled the female into an empty classroom after school, where she was assaulted.

The CPFSA said the girl has since been referred to the Ministry of Justice’s Victims Services Division for counselling/psychological support, while the boy was referred to the Child Guidance Clinic at The University of the West Indies for psychological intervention.

Abel, a consultant psychiatrist and therapist, declined to comment extensively on the specific case in his presentation, but later argued that “a major part of the problem” facing Jamaica can be traced back to the lack of respect for human life.

“The other day I was driving and I heard somebody just casually say, ‘I going to kill you.’ We say it just easily like that; ‘I’m going to kill you’. It speaks to the lack of respect for human life in terms of law and order… The country needs to take a zero-tolerance approach, and we have to deal with the popular culture; all aspects of the popular culture — it’s aggressive, it’s violent,” Abel said.

He charged that even Jamaica’s cultural greats should fall under some kind of discipline.

“You know, even some of our cultural icons — and I know I’m going to take a hit for this — [but] we teach children some of the dialect and it’s about cursing people, and some of what they are learning is violent, and you send them to the Festival [of the Performing Arts] and they get gold medal and we clap them. What is it we’re teaching them to develop these dysfunctional behaviours? And we have to address these things in the popular culture and take a zero-tolerance approach to it,” Abel insisted.

“As a society we have to look at the normative attitude towards violence, the popular culture, the music that encourages violence and abuse, the overexposure in media, and, of course, the political culture; but these are frightening, frightening, frightening statistics as we think about our country — Jamaica, land we love,” Abel said in referencing the findings of the 2023 Jamaica Violence Against Children and Youth Survey.

According to the survey, Jamaica Constabulary Force data showed that for the period 2018 to 2020, a total of 1,128 young people, between 10 and 24 years, were victims of murder, 1,548 were victims of rape, and 425 were victims of aggravated assault.

In the meantime, Abel pointed to the need for sensitivity in the management of traumatic events.

“Trauma,” he said, “occurs when individuals are exposed to events that are distressing, potentially life-threatening events that can overwhelm our ability to cope, and often these experiences we may witness them, be involved in them directly, or even be told about incidents, and that’s why it’s important in today’s world that when you know events occur in communities we don’t drag people together and have them debriefed any more, because debriefing actually traumatises people.” he said.

Turning to the role played by the media, Abel called on practitioners to handle sensitive information better.

“Very often a lot of people in fact will tell you they don’t watch television in Jamaica or listen to radio because the content is too traumatising for them. They become vicariously traumatised just by listening to conversations and seeing the blood, and you know, if it doesn’t bleed, it doesn’t lead in media, and that is something we have to pay attention to,” Abel stated.

His comments came hours before advocacy group Hear The Children’s Cry (HTCC), in reacting to the incident at the primary school, renewed its call for urgent action to shield Jamaica’s children from harmful influences.

According to HTCC, exposure to inappropriate content and poor social conditions are contributing to moral decline and dangerous behaviours.

HTCC Director Nigel Cooper, in supporting an appeal by the National Parent Teachers’ Association of Jamaica for stricter vetting of content consumed by children, emphasised that beyond parental responsibility the wider society must also be held accountable.

“The recent report of an incident at [a primary school] in Kingston is another glaring example of the fact that morally, Jamaica is on a slippery slope,” Cooper said.

“Children are bombarded with sexual images and lyrics. Poor socialisation and living conditions do not help the situation — for instance, where adult conversations and activities are in view and earshot of little children because of lack of space. Our sources say that the popular game of ‘Jook’ has taken a radical turn in some primary schools, and now involves taking off undergarments and jumping on each other,” Cooper said.

“Parents have to be held responsible for their young children. However, the wider society must also bear responsibility, especially when we consider that many parents of young children are very young themselves, some even falling within the definition of a child, by their age,” he argued.