Claude Mills and Glenroy Sinclair, Staff Reporters
ANDERSON
WITH 12 children murdered since the start of the year, child rights groups are clamouring for Government action to defuse the threat posed to the defenceless minors.
The murder figure represents an increase of nine per cent over the corresponding period in 2004. One UNICEF report showed that 119 children (below 18 years of age) were murdered in Jamaica in 2004. The report said 430 children were shot, and more than 900 were victims of sexual abuse.
Allison Anderson, head of the Child Development Agency (CDA), has said that a national plan of action will be implemented soon.
The national plan on children and violence will incorporate a multi-level, multi-sector approach, and according to Ms. Anderson, "will be approved by Cabinet and implemented before the end of year."
"We have to stop the cycle of violence against children with this generation. We need to ensure that the next generation has a different level of nurturing and upbringing, so that we don't have to go through this again," she stated.
According to Carol Samuels, executive director of Jamaica Coalition on the Rights of the Child: "We are losing too many of our children to gunmen.
"These gruesome acts - I just don't understand them. These killers are psychopaths, people with mental flaws, no conscience, and no heart," she said.
She added that "When you target children, it is saying something about our society. Something has gone wrong with the psyche of our people."
"Killing children is not normal behaviour and it speaks to an inherent problem we've had in dealing with this conscience-less group of people that our society has created."
But even as the experts seek solutions to the problem, the bloodletting of the nation's children continues at an alarming pace. Yesterday, senior investigators attached to the Manchester Police Division began a probe into the death of an 18-month-old child, who according to the autopsy report, may have been beaten to death.
"The autopsy report is showing that the child sustained serious injuries, consistent with that of beating," said Superintendent George Quallo, when contacted yesterday.
Child rights activist Betty Ann Blaine, convenor of Hear the Children Cry and founder of Youth Opportunities Unlimited, believes that not enough is being done.
"I am very critical of how the CDA has been dealing with the matter. I have not heard anything from them, no attempts have been made to address the situation through public education, she said. "What is happening is that the young men, the 'shottas', don't care. Quite frankly, they don't make a distinction between children and adults," she said.
