Advocate: Get kids to open up about abuse
Published:Thursday | November 19, 2020 | 12:17 AMJudana Murphy/Gleaner Writer
Parents have been urged to develop more open relationships with their children so that they will be more likely to disclose incidents of sexual and other abuse as reports to state authorities have plunged amid the coronavirus pandemic.
As the country commemorates World Day for the Prevention of Child Abuse today, Hyacinth Blair, senior director of children’s affairs in the Ministry of Education, Youth and Information, advised parents and guardians that close relationships are more likely to reduce the risk of first-time and repeated harm.
“It’s important for children to know that they can come to you with anything and to ensure that they won’t feel blamed for something that somebody has done to them,” Blair told The Gleaner on Wednesday.
Stakeholders will host a digital town hall meeting exploring the National Plan of Action for an Integrated Response to Children and Violence (NPACV), that will be aired on Television Jamaica at 8:30 tonight.
Public relations and communications manager at the Child Protection and Family Services Agency (CPFSA), Rochelle Dixon Gordon, used the opportunity to remind Jamaicans that reports of abuse can be made anonymously.
Dixon Gordon said that the reduction in reports since COVID-19, which was first detected in Jamaica in March, could be linked to increased supervision at home or children sharing spaces with perpetrators, with no outlet to make reports at school.
Only 17 public schools and a handful of private institutions are currently holding face-to-face classes.
Monthly, the National Children’s Registry usually receives an average of 1,200 reports of child abuse.
But in March, child abuse reports fell 28 per cent compared to that month in the previous year. Reports plunged 70 per cent in April.
Reports rose in June but have fluctuated in the four months that followed.
Dixon Gordon said that St Thomas was one of the parishes that had seen “very few reports”, a trend she cited as troubling.
“We will be going back into the communities that we have a suspicion that abuse is happening so we can get the numbers and we can reach the children because they are the ones that need help,” she said.
Reports can be made by calling 888-PROTECT (776-8328), on WhatsApp at 876-878-2882, or at CPFSA offices located in every parish.
Reports of child abuse (February-August 2020):
February-1163
March-842
April-366
May-521
June-983
July- 928
August-694