Carolyn Gomes, executive director of Jamaicans For Justice (JFJ), is calling for the resignation of head of the Child Development Agency (CDA), saying she has failed to make positive changes in her role at the helm of the institution after six years.

Gomes said findings of abuse from 2005 to 2006 were horrific, and recommendations were made with several subsequent promises. However, according to Gomes, nothing has changed.

Now, she says, the promises of Alison Anderson, chief executive officer of the CDA, should come to an end.

Action needed

"We want to make it clear that, six years after the formation of the CDA, we can no longer accept promises. They are not sufficient, we need action to protect the children," Gomes declared.

Gomes, who was addressing a press conference yesterday at the JFJ's Fagan Avenue office, said the issue has worsened, as the Government presented half-truths about the state of children's homes in a report to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights last Tuesday.

She said the report claimed that no cases of abuse were seen in children's homes in the country.

"That response reveals to our mind the need for honesty in our assessment of the problem. We cannot continue to deny because we cannot fix what we will not acknowledge," she argued.

Susan Goffe, JFJ spokesperson, revealed that the organisation got documentation from the Access to Information Act, which was collected by the CDA's monitoring officers.

Abuse cases

She said the information, collected in 2008/2009, showed there were several cases of abuse at five different children's homes, while the CDA noted that no abuse cases were seen.

"We want to know why the Government did not feel it necessary to give the whole picture, but only to focus on what they thought was the better side of the result," said Goffe.

"Is it to put a false picture to the international community?"

She also pointed to agencies that she said solicitor general spoke about, but people in the child-care circuit were unaware of.

Anderson defended the quality of the presentations, saying there was a typographical error in the report and that there was a difference between observing abuse and knowing of it.

In response to the call for her resignation, Anderson went on to say, "I will have to make the judgement call, as well as my boss, when the time comes."

kimesha.walters@gleanerjm.com