- Michael Sloley/Freelance Photographer
A caregiver assists two children of the state with reading material.
CAREGIVERS BELIEVE that many children who end up as wards of the state go in already highly exposed to sex. These children are normally either sexually abused or frequently see adults and young people engaging in sexual intercourse.
"These children have been under the bed or sometimes on the bed while those in their homes are having sex. They are the products of the society a society where men in jacket and tie pick up little boys and pay them to have sex with them. Why aren't we doing something about it as a society?" questioned one social worker who is employed to a children's home.
During the course of a child's sexual development he or she may rub or touch his genitals, inspect others' bodies, play house and doctor and may insert once out of curiosity, experts consider this to be healthy sexual development. Children, however, need psychological help when they have sexual knowledge beyond their age, repeatedly force other children to touch their genitals and/or engage in sexual activity and have an excessive interest in sex. These children have become sexualised. Children become sexualised as a result of having suffered sexual abuse or as a result of exposure to sexual activities in their environment.
"They are mirroring what they see in the society. I'm waiting for the AIDS problem to hit us next. I believe it's just because of the long incubation period why we haven't seen that."
Over 40 per cent of Jamaica's children between 10 and 18 years old are sexually active according to the National Knowledge, Attitude, Behaviour and Practice (KABP) study which was conducted in 2000. The average age of engaging in first sexual activity is age 13 for males, and age 14 for girls. Females in the age groups 10 to 14, and 15 to 19, have twice and three times higher risk of HIV infection than boys of the same age group.
Sources in the Children Services Division (CSD) say many of the children in children's homes and places of safety come into the system abused or abandoned and suffer emotional and psychological problems often expressed by their sexual behaviours.
"It's not that they are bad children, neither is it about homosexuality," said the social worker who spoke on the basis of anonymity.
"It's about children searching for intimacy. Children who were not hugged and touched by parents as a child should be and who in search of bonding have turned to touching themselves and touching each other at an early age. If you learn that when you are small, by the time they get to six or seven we have a problem.
According to our source, when children are caught engaging in sexual activities, they are counselled about it. If that doesn't work privileges are withdrawn. Corporal punishment is usually the last resort.
Rules have been put in place to protect children from being molested by perverted caregivers who get into the system.
"At my institution we have rules. No member of staff is to be alone with a child, without my knowledge."
But they still struggle with protecting the children from sexually engaging with each other.
"Yes, it is happening and I've done what I can. I don't know what else to do to stop it. I need help," the source said.
Asked about getting specialised help for the children, the source said informal approaches had been made by that institution to some of Jamaica's premier psychiatrists but no help has come their way. The source said the necessary professional resources are simply not available to them.
The source feels that as part of the solution "we need a massive educational campaign for the entire society. We need to talk to mothers before they become pregnant. We need to go into the basic schools, but we have to take the blinders off our eyes."
- Y Chin.
