RIGHTS-JAMAICA: Advocates Query Pending Law on Child Sexual Abuse

By Zadie Neufville Reprint | | Print |

Zadie Neufville

KINGSTON, Nov 15 2002 (IPS) - Last month, lobbyists began campaigning for measures to better protect women’s and children’s rights, including a public education programme aimed at preventing rape and other sexual crimes and an emergency telephone line to report such incidents.

Activists say the move is aimed at putting the rights of Jamaican children on the political agenda after a year that has seen 16 children under the age of 15 killed in reprisal attacks and six under-aged girls raped and killed.

The demands were are all listed in new legislation unveiled last year that Prime Minister P.J. Patterson said would "revolutionise" the rights of children, in part by compelling doctors and parents to report abuse and provide the names of the offenders.

But more than 10 months after the law was expected to pass through parliament, it is still being reviewed by interest groups because activists say at least two of the sections will further endanger, rather than protect, children.

The Bureau of Women’s Affairs – the agency mandated by government to protect women’s rights – is challenging the bill’s proposal to lower the age of consent for girls from 16 to 14 years.

At the same time, the Women’s Centre Foundation (WCF) – the main agency working with pregnant teens – is concerned that "mandatory disclosure of sexual activity in under-aged girls" could do more harm than good.

The new Child Care and Protection Act obliges doctors and other persons who know that a child has been molested or abused to report that to police. It also allows police to arrest suspected child molesters even if the victim does not make a written statement.

But the WCF argues that if hospitals and other service providers are forced to disclose details about their clients, not only will trust be breached, but pregnant teen mothers may end up "going underground", to the detriment of themselves and their babies..

This position is supported by the senior medical officer at the Victoria Jubilee Hospital (VJH) Douglas McDonald, who believes that the hospital’s first priority is the health and well being of the mother.

"Teenage pregnancies are worrying and high risk to both mother and baby and we have to focus on that. Patient confidentiality is a key factor and we do not want to create a situation that drives them away from the hospital," he said.

The VJH is the largest maternity hospital on the island. In 2000, it reported 85 births to girls under the age of 15 years.

For its part, the Women’s Bureau is vowing to challenge any move to lower the age of consent.

"We cannot even fathom the logic on which such a recommendation could be made. We are totally opposed to it, and we will agitate and mobilise against it," Bureau Head Glenda Simms told journalists.

It is rumoured that the change was proposed so that there would be less pressure on agencies to reveal the names of child abusers.

Simms who still has not read the draft law, said that as a signatory to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, Jamaica has committed itself to protecting children from various forms of violence and exploitation.

At least one United Nations agency has also expressed concern over the recommendation to lower the age of consent. Oyebade Ajayi, the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) representative here, believes such a move could have negative repercussions on the reproductive and sexual health of young people.

Starting sexual activity at a younger age can lead to multiple sexual partners, which is a leading factor in cervical cancer. Children born to younger mothers also face greater health risks, Ajayi said.

But some people believe that the proposed law would deter those who prey on young girls. Many offenders go free because crimes are not reported, says Artice Brown-Getten, head of the police Centre for Sexual Offences of Child Abuse.

Police say many parents fail to report the crimes because of embarrassment, fear, and economic hardships. Some parents accept payment in return for dropping charges or may simply turn a "blind eye” to relationships between teens and older men because of financial rewards, they add.

The WCF’s position paper points out that threats and intimidation are other reasons why some parents and relatives fail to report abuses.

"A most serious area of concern here is the very real risk of physical harm to nurses, doctors, or health care providers from persons who are accused," it states.

While the United Nations has identified rape as one of the main threats to Jamaican teenaged girls, the group Women’s Media Watch (WMW) calls it ‘rape terrorism’.

WMW’s Hillary Nicholson speaks of the "ongoing horror" of men demanding sex, raping girls and threatening families if they do not give up girls the men want, making the gun "a tool of sexual conquest" in inner city communities.

So widespread is the practise, Nicholson said, that the organisation is finding that many female victims do not see forced sex as rape or a crime, while among men with few other sources of power, the act is seen as a principal mark of masculinity.

Researchers believe that child sexual abuse in Jamaica goes back to the era of slavery and has become embedded in tradition. The beliefs include encouraging fathers to rape their daughters to demonstrate they "own" them and that raping young girls can cure sexually transmitted diseases.

RIGHTS-JAMAICA: Advocates Query Pending Law on Child Sexual Abuse

By Zadie Neufville Reprint | | Print |

Zadie Neufville

KINGSTON, Nov 15 2002 (IPS) - Last month, lobbyists began campaigning for measures to better protect women’s and children’s rights, including a public education programme aimed at preventing rape and other sexual crimes and an emergency telephone line to report such incidents.
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