Child abuse, like the hair on the head of Medusa of Greek mythology, has many ugly heads. Neglect is only one of them and it continues to expose its repulsive self in the Jamaican society.

Information provided by The Office of the Children's Registry indicated a steady rise in this criminal behaviour.

In 2007, 81 cases were reported to the office with a hike in 2008 to 1,607 and, 1,995 up to August this year.

Against the background of the spike in these reported incidents, the registry is urging parents not to leave their children at home unsupervised.

Children's registrar, Carla Edie, stated that parents should ensure they are carrying out their parental roles effectively, as they can be fined or imprisoned if they do not.

Duty to care

"The Office of the Children's Registry wishes to remind all parents and guardians that it is their duty to provide certain basic necessities such as adequate food, clothing, lodging, health care and education for their children," she said. "We understand that given the current economic situation, a lot of parents and guardians find it difficult to do so, however, if needed, you can apply to the State for financial assistance."

Section 9 of the Child Care and Protection Act stated that parents or guardians who neglect or commit other specified forms of offences against children, can be fined up to an unlimited amount or imprisoned for up to five years with hard labour.

Audrey Budhi, director of policy planning and evaluation at the Child Development Agency (CDA), stated that CDA appreciates that there are parents who are grappling with the challenge of raising their children.

"A lot of people have the children but they are not prepared as they are not given the skills. We also find that we have younger and younger parents out there."

She added that the effects on the children are numerous.

Among these, she said, are early pregnancies; psychological problems where the children may not be able to operate at their age and grade level as well as child neglect; and an increase in the number of street children.

In order to see a decline, CDA hosts preventative programmes as support for parents.

"We really want prevention so we try to develop a skill set.We try to do advocacy with parents as well as sessions to help them in parenting skills and to develop their capacity as parents," she declared.

Children's Advocate Mary Clarke, encouraged parents to take their children to organisations, such as CDA or the nearest police station, rather than to abandon or neglect them.

Seek help

She said the state, along with civil society, should put mechanisms in place to help parents to care for their children.

"In this harsh economic climate parents have to go to work but other persons can step in to help parents with their children," she suggested.

Miranda Sutherland, president of the National Parent Teachers' Association of Jamaica, also called on parents having challenges to seek help for their families and in particular their children instead of thinking about neglect.

"Please do everything possible to ensure the holistic development of your offsprings, despite the challenging time," she said. "If parents should disregard, ignore, forget to perform or abandon their parental responsibilities at any time in the child's life, they will have to prepare to face the consequences and the various laws of the country are there to deal with them."

Editor's note: Starting today we will serialise the Child Development Agency's brochure, 'What You Should Know About Child Abuse' which identifies the types of child abuse, tells what to look for and gives tips on how to protect your children from it.