MINISTER OF Justice, Senator A.J. Nicholson, has said that a National Plan of Action for Juvenile Justice has been drafted and is to be presented to Cabinet during this calendar year.
He made the announcement Thursday at the opening of a two-day workshop in the Inter-American System on Human Rights and the Promotion and Defence of the Rights of the Child, organised by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) and the Government of Jamaica, at the Knutsford Court Hotel, in Kingston.
WORKSHOPS
Senator Nicholson said the draft was done following a series of consultative workshops across the island and involved the examination of the Juvenile Act and relevant pieces of legislation affecting children in the context of international standards and obligations, such as the Convention on the Rights of the Child, the Riyadh Guidelines, the International Labour Organisation (ILO) Convention on Child Labour and the Beijing Rules.
Since 2001, the Ministry has embarked on a comprehensive review of the juvenile justice system in partnership with the United Nations Children Fund (UNICEF), with the aim of effecting major changes to the processing of children by law enforcement officials, whether these children are seeking the protection of the law or are in conflict with the law; and improving the processes of adjudication and the disposition of cases in the juvenile and family courts. Another issue under review is the reduction of recidivism and the number of cases coming before the courts.
EMPHASIS
In addition, Senator Nicholson pointed out, Government had placed significant emphasis on the development of an Early Childhood Act, which would complement the provision in the Charter of Rights and Freedom Bill, now before the House. The Bill seeks to entrench the right of every child who is a citizen of Jamaica, to free tuition in public educational institutions at the basic and primary levels.
He noted that while it was the duty of Government to put measures in place to protect children, the public also had a role to play in altering the relevant agencies to situations where children's rights were being abused. 'It is the duty of the Government to tackle the problems. Government however, cannot tackle what it knows nothing about .... we cannot be reticent in being whistle blowers in this regard," he stated.
The Ministry of Health's annual report of 2001 said that of all visits to accident and emergency units for sexual assault, 73.7 per cent of patients were between 10 and 19 years of age. The report also said that although the 10-19 age group had the highest frequency of visits, some 7.5 per cent were children under the age of 5 years.
