J'cans urged to wake up on child care issues
published: Thursday | November 18, 2004
By Tyrone Reid, Staff Reporter
COMMUNITY COMPLACENCY was largely blamed for the continuation of ills that perpetually plague the improvement of child care in Jamaica during the Mid-term Review for the Government of Jamaica/UNICEF Country Programme of Co-operation 2002-2006.
Bertrand Bainvel, UNICEF representative, challenged Jamaicans to awake from their complacent slumber and join the fight. "While I have no doubt that we all of us gathered this morning in the Conference Centre are the right engineers for the job, I also seriously doubt that we will be able to get further than a mile in construction without the initiative, support and the engagement of the public at large," said Mr. Bainvel while addressing the gathering at the Jamaica Conference Centre, downtown Kingston.
Mr. Bainvel added that HIV/AIDS, violence and exclusion are some of the major threats to the well being of the nation's children. "In the face of these, passivity and silence are not viable options any longer. It is time for all of us to stop finger pointing, turning to "them" those in charge to shield us from the threats," he said.
WAKE UP AND SMELL THE COFFEE
Minister of Education, Youth and Culture, Maxine Henry-Wilson also joined the call for Jamaicans to wake up and smell the coffee. Some of the staggering statistics she shared with the gathering as the backbone of her argument is that "one out of every five girls between the ages of 15 and 19, is the victim of forced sex, overwhelmingly perpetrated by someone with whom she has a close relationship and that being a resident of rural Jamaica puts such an individual at greatest risk."
She added that statistics show that children are predominantly the victims of sexual offences, such as, incest, attempted rape, indecent assault and gross indecency. Also, the minister highlighted that a large number of children are injured in violence, with 86 per cent of such victims being injured by someone they know.
"If these are the facts, and we have no reason to doubt them, then it represents an indictment of our wider society and must dispel any notion we have that we are indeed doing a good job of caring how we grow our children," she said.
