MONTEGO BAY, St James — In an effort to protect the nation’s youngsters, Children’s Advocate Diahann Gordon Harrison is calling for a more rigorous vetting process for individuals seeking employment in early childhood institutions.

She has also suggested that it may be time to allow greater access to the Sex Offender Registry while ensuring that measures are taken to prevent jungle justice.

Speaking with reporters Wednesday on the sidelines of the ongoing Early Childhood Commission’s annual Professional Development Institute at Montego Bay Convention Centre, Gordon Harrison noted that the Office of the Children’s Advocate has a national mandate under law to ensure that “our children are kept safe”.

“My recommendation has been that when early childhood institutions, for example, are recruiting staff it’s not just about a paper qualification. It’s not just about an appearance to say, ‘Oh, they’re friends, so they’ll connect well with little ones who are going to early childhood institutions’. But it’s about doing very thorough background checks,” she said.

“Where children are going to be attending or going to be participating in any activity, we want to create safe spaces,” added Gordon Harrison.

The Children’s Advocate further recommended that, as part of their recruitment process, early childhood institutions consult the Sex Offender Registry. She underscored that while the registry is not publicly open, it is accessible to individuals or organisations with a credible and justifiable reason.

Gordon Harrison stressed that by checking if prospective employees have a history of sexual offences, institutions can prevent unsuitable individuals from gaining access to young children.

She highlighted the need for vigilance, particularly given the vulnerability of children between the ages of zero and eight, many of whom are in the care of preschools, basic schools, and daycare facilities.

“As I’ve said before and repeated today… when you’re recruiting prospective staff, contact the registry,” she urged, adding that if checks uncover that an applicant is a registered sex offender, that means that the individual is “someone that you would exclude from exposing to people’s children”.

“That way we can ensure that we’re having appropriate persons who are given direct access to some of our most vulnerable children,” she added.

Gordon Harrison suggested that there needs to be renewed discussion around how the Sex Offender Registry functions. She noted that there have been clear cases of known perpetrators relocating within communities and causing serious harm to children, including incidents that have resulted in loss of life. While she clarified that she is not advocating unrestricted public access, she stressed the urgency of addressing this issue.

“I’m saying let us revisit and have very constant, active and critical conversation. Look at the data, look at the pattern of behaviour of the past couple of years and determine if we can give broader access, perhaps not just to persons who are seeking to employ someone, but perhaps on a parish level. If the mayor of the parish is, for example, alerted that you now have sex offenders living in community X and community Y, then the citizens of those communities can be engaged to say, ‘All right, you need to be more vigilant because XYZ’,” she said.

“And I’m being this measured because I’m very aware that, in Jamaica, we do have a very strong history of jungle justice. Everybody wants to be judge, jury, and executioner in one so that may be something that we want to be very careful about. But I think we need to revisit it to determine how we can increase the rubric of protection to our children,” she added.

During the conference, Gordon Harrison spoke on the topic: ‘The relevance of independent monitoring institutions to child protection systems’. The sessions, which run from May 19 to 23, cover the theme: ‘High Quality Early Childhood Care and Education: A Child’s Right not a Service’.