KINGSTON, Jamaica—With the Child Protection and Family Services Agency (CPFSA) receiving 13,531 reports of abuse involving children in 2023/24, Opposition Spokesman on Youth and Human Rights, Isat Buchanan, has declared a “child protection emergency” in the country.

Making his maiden contribution to the Sectoral Debate in the House of Representatives on June 23, Buchanan noted that 6,314 of those calls were distress calls to the 211 hotline.

“Behind the categories of sexual abuse, physical abuse, neglect, emotional abuse and child trafficking are real Jamaican children,” said Buchanan.

He reminded the House that the former Minister of Education, Fayval Williams, said she wanted Jamaicans to be appalled by that number.

“We are,” said the first-term Member of Parliament for Portland Eastern.

“The question is what the State has done with its appallment,” he added.

Buchanan said the 211 line should be commended and publicised. He also lauded the creation of therapeutic centres at Maxfield Park and Windsor children’s homes and a sensory room at Muirton.

“But a handful of centres serving a few hundred children cannot be the national answer to 13,000 cries for help,” Buchanan argued.

He said the Opposition wants to know: how many of those 13,531 reports to the CPFSA were investigated to conclusion? How many children were actually removed from danger? How long is the wait for a child protection investigator, a clinical social worker, and a place of safety?

According to the Opposition Spokesman, “The dignity of a child is not honoured by the building we open; it is honoured by whether the child is, in fact, protected.