AGAINST the background of numerous allegations of educators sexually violating students, director of investigations, inspections and compliance at the Office of the Children’s Advocate (OCA) Keisha Rodriguez-Mills, has called on school officials to “be more aware”.

According to Rodriguez-Mills, some school administrators have adopted a false sense of comfort when such individuals resign, only to be rudely awakened when the educator repeats the inappropriate behaviour at another institution.

Speaking at a recent discussion series put on by the University of Technology, Jamaica centring on the theme “Strengthening the system: Protecting our children from child sexual abuse”, Rodriguez-Mills said while there is an increase in persons reporting child sexual abuse, among them child reporters, there are still hurdles.

“What we’re also seeing is that a lot of reports are coming in about teachers allegedly violating students. What we’re also seeing as well, is a lot of grooming, or alleged grooming affecting males. But the males being adolescents, they’re not reporting it. And people are saying that they’re just being ‘girly’ in reporting. So it’s normally another child who is aware of [the] abuse who is making the report on behalf of their friend, which is a good thing, which is saying we as a society are educating our children to say and to note when something is amiss,” she told the forum.

According to Rodriguez-Mills, stakeholders in their mission to educate school officials and workers should also target teacher training institutions in order to further cauterise the situation.

“The teachers’ colleges need to do more in preparing teachers to teach children and not just about the curriculum because what we are finding is that teachers are just talking about the work plan, the teaching practicum, and that they have to do their preparation for the classes and the courses, but they are lacking in how to treat with children so that even when children have a crush on the teacher… [and also teachers knowing that] you’re the adult and you’re not to be engaging in inappropriate activities with children,” Rodriguez-Mills told the audience.

In calling for principals to conduct “scheduled orientation exercises on appropriate behaviours and what should be done” with potential workers and teachers, Rodriguez-Mills said the OCA has seen the unsavoury outcomes when this is not done.

“What we find from the OCA side when we’re investigating a case against a teacher is that the teacher just ups and resigns. So when the case is being investigated the schools will say ‘oh we have gotten rid of the problem because the teacher has resigned’ but what has happened is that the teacher has gone to another school and then there is no record to follow and you’ll find out that it is only when the teacher continues the behaviour at the next school then the new principal will call the other principal and say, ‘okay your teacher is at my school and I’m getting this complaint’,” she pointed out.

According to Rodriguez-Mills, the typical responses from those principals tend to be ‘oh, well, he left before we could properly ventilate the matter, so we didn’t keep a record of it’.

“Report them to the ministry so that there is a proper vetting process and follow-up too. So you don’t have this [situation] where because you’re so short-staffed, you just take a teacher. So you have a teacher moving from Kingston and going all the way to Westmoreland and then you’re so happy for this teacher [you miss all the red flags],” she urged.

Added Rodriguez-Mills: “Schools need to be more aware and not just to say the problem moved or ended when the person resigned, but keep a record too. And then you have your students now who are coming and they shy away from the class and automatically you assume the students are bad, but the children are really uncomfortable with the teacher and so they don’t go to the class. So we need the educators to be more aware. Open up your eyes, report, and don’t just say ‘I wish this person resigns, because when you resign my problem ends’.”

In the meantime, Inspector of Police Florene Clarke, sub-officer in charge of the Centre for the Investigation of Sexual Offences and Child Abuse (CISOCA) commended the Jamaica Teachers’ Association (JTA) for its efforts in that area.

“Since year I went to the women’s conference for the JTA where we presented, and we were also invited to join with all the teachers’ colleges across Jamaica where we shared all the dos and don’ts in relation to sexual grooming… and whether or not they’re having relationship with students in schools and the ethical consequences of it versus… the law. So I believe the JTA is doing something. We have gone into schools where we have arrested teachers, we have arrested other workers, ancillary staff and so on. So things are working but it will take time. We will continue to extend ourselves… not just to forcefully invite ourselves into these institutions, but to let them know that we have that educational component and we are determined to inform Jamaica and to educate them about what is expected in terms of protecting our children,” Clarke told the forum.

Director of intake investigation, court and adoption services at the Child Protection and Family Services Agency Dr Warren Thompson, while not providing numbers, said while cases involving sex with a person under 16 are in the majority of child sex abuse matters, there are challenges in bringing perpetrators to book.

“A lot of the cases are for sex with a person under the age of 16; we do get a lot of reports for things like sexual touching, what would constitute grievous sexual assault, but very often those don’t necessarily go to the police for investigation because of insufficient evidence, or when we refer to CISOCA the cases can’t go anywhere. But certainly, sex with a person under the age of 16 tends to be the most prominent form of sexual abuse that we see and I also want to say to you that 90 per cent of sexual abuse cases are against girls,” Thompson said.

He said that while girls tend to be the majority victims, abuse of males is also prominent.

“We know that there is a gross under-reporting for cases with male victims and of course the majority of reports for male victims would be for buggery. We’re not getting the sexual touching; we’re not getting the sex with a person under the age of 16 even though males are also victims. We tend to report when the male has been buggered. We don’t report all the other things that would have occurred including the sexual grooming, because both boys and girls are groomed in Jamaica,” Thompson said.