Retired president of the Court of Appeal, Justice Paul Harrison, and his team will today attempt to uncover the circumstances that led to the tragic deaths of seven teenagers. The seven were victims of a fire at the Armadale Juvenile Centre in St Ann, last month. Two succumbed to injuries at hospital.

Child-rights activists and the country at large will today begin to observe the commission of enquiry, announced by Prime Minister Bruce Golding in May, into the tragedy that left the country in shock.

The deaths of the seven young women, who were wards of the State, have again reignited intense debate on the status of children's homes and other institutions.

Rights not observed

Senior lecturer in gender development studies at the University of the West Indies, Dr Leith Dunn, cautioned that the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child was not being observed in many state institutions.

She argued that staff at children's homes should be properly trained and held accountable for their actions.

Dunn has charged that employees in these institutions who refuse to carry out their duties effectively should be dismissed.

Meanwhile, as the Justice Harrison-led commission of enquiry gets under way, an investigation carried out by The Gleaner recently revealed that many of the critical recommendations of the Keating Report on Children's Homes in Jamaica have not been implemented in some places of safety.

Ignored a recommendation

The Gleaner probe found that many places of safety had ignored a recommendation calling for the separation of criminally charged children from others in the State facilities.

In particular, the 2006 report, which outlined the status of children in Jamaican places of safety and residential childcare facilities, proposed a physical separation of juveniles in need of care and protection from those deemed to be uncontrollable, and those who have committed criminal offences.

It was argued by one attorney-at-law that children who were in conflict with the law should not be mixed with others.

In response to the findings of the investigations, Rashida St Juste, communications manager at the Child Development Agency, acknowledged that there was a challenge in relation to the failure to separate children with criminal charges from others, at the Glenhope and the Homestead places of safety (POS).

"Ideally, what would be needed to achieve separation is an expansion of existing places of safety and/or additional POS being built," St Juste said in an email to The Gleaner.

The Office of the Public Defender, a commission of Parliament, has also signalled that it would be carrying out its own investigation into the Armadale incident.

Public Defender Earl Witter said his office would be conducting a probe into possible infringement of the children's right to life and protection against inhumane treatment and punishment.