Adults urged to speak out against violent disciplining of children

With the latest Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey (MICS) highlighting that 76 per cent of Jamaican children between the ages of one and 14 years experience ‘violent discipline’, Nicole Patrick Shaw, newly minted chairperson of the National Child Month Committee, has one favour to ask for Child Month.

That is for more “villages” in Jamaica to act in accordance with the theme of National Child Month for 2024, which is to ‘Stand up! Speak out! Protect the Rights of Our Children!’, especially when they are being violently disciplined.

Violent discipline is any physical punishment and/or psychological aggression.

Of note is that about seven out of every 10 children have experienced psychological aggression as a form of child discipline, according to the MICS.

Following the announcement of her selection to run the 70-year-old committee and to champion a cause for the children of the nation, Patrick Shaw noted that children and youth “although not able to pay a bill” have the same general human rights as adults do and specific rights that recognise their special needs.

“With our society being crippled by crime and violence, especially in schools, we need to do more. We need to be more compassionate, empathetic, and supportive of each other, especially the children and the vulnerable,” Shaw said.

“Stand up! Do not be passive in safeguarding the nation’s children. Don’t be that guy that maintains the ‘See and blind. Hear and deaf’ culture. Stop drinking water and pretending that you’re minding your own business. Our responsibilities as Jamaicans extend beyond caring for our individual children and relatives. We the citizens must tend to the care of each child. Speak out for the rights of our children. We cannot be silent on issues affecting our children. For too long, some citizens’ silence has become deafening, so much so that they hear nothing when their neighbours or friends abuse their children, leaving them to cope on their own. These children never forget and they become adults who are broken butterflies, unable to fly. Let us do more in highlighting and addressing the children’s needs to be protected,” she said.

Shaw was speaking during the launch of Child Month last Thursday at the Lecture Hall of the Institute of Jamaica in downtown Kingston.

It was the Planning Institute of Jamaica in partnership with the Statistical Institute of Jamaica, the Inter-American Development Bank, and the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) that launched the recent findings of MICS.

The latest MICS survey, which was carried out in 2022, provides the most up-to-date data for Jamaica, which the Government can use to take stock and make decisions on behalf of children.

Troubling data

For her part, guest speaker Olga Isaza, Jamaica Representative, UNICEF, expressed her concerns about troubling data contained in the latest MICS.

“Let me highlight two areas, among others, in which we all need to do much more to overcome the complex barriers that prevent children from realising their full potential. With respect to education, UNICEF is concerned that only 86 per cent of youth between 19 and 21 years old have completed upper secondary school. And when you consider the socio-economic breakdown, the findings show that 97 per cent of children in the richest households have completed upper secondary school compared to 75 per cent of children living in the poorest households. Where are the other children? We cannot afford to leave any of them behind,” Isaza said.

“Jamaica has done well in areas such as vaccination coverage during the first year of life; 89 per cent of children between 12 and 23 months had received all basic vaccinations at any time before the survey. Education also has some bright spots, especially among the primary levels, with 99 per cent of children completing primary school. The data also found that 95 per cent of adolescents between 17 and 19 years old completed lower secondary school. These are achievements to celebrate, and maintain, without a doubt,” she said.

Using gender lenses, the MICS data found that boys are generally at greater risk than girls for being out of school. Thirteen per cent of boys 15-16 years old are not attending school compared to about seven per cent of girls in this age group. In addition, three per cent of boys who are attending lower secondary school are at risk of dropping out of school.

“The children who are losing out on their opportunity to be educated require everyone to stand up and speak out and take action which will prevent them being pushed towards an unproductive life in society or turning to a life of crime. The data are available not only to advocate, but also to implement evidence-based decisions and programmes that will effectively reach these children and adolescents at risk,” Isaza said.

“For some people, or should I say for many people, this exercise is challenging either because we had to block the events or their impact or because we were told that it was the way, the only way. Then violence was naturalised, sometimes supported or explained as an expression of affection or as an example of good parenting capacities. This is not true. There are other scientifically proven, healthy, and loving ways to raise our children. Unfortunately, much of the violence starts and remains in the family, the school, and the communities – the places that are supposed to be the ones accountable for protecting and caring for every single child,” she said.

The economic situation of households has an even more dismal impact on the type of discipline a child will experience. As the data show, 79 per cent of children living in the poorest households experience violent discipline compared with the already alarming 67 per cent of children living in the richest households.

“Even if the physical punishment decreases as the child gets older, from 70 per cent for three- to four-year-olds to 46 per cent when they are 10- to 14-year-olds, the level of psychological aggression is constant for children across these age groups at about 70 per cent. This indicates a distressing continuum of harsh treatment from early childhood into adolescence for many children,” she said.

Duty to protect children

Representative of the lead sponsor, Lauri-Ann Samuels, executive director, National Baking Company Foundation, also noted her agreement with Patrick Shaw that villages are needed to act in accordance with the theme of National Child Month for 2024.

“When I thought about this year’s theme, I came to the conclusion that these words inherently mandate us with a duty to protect the rights of children. I’m sure we are all familiar with the saying ‘It takes a village to raise a child’. A phrase that has been recited repeatedly since we were all children, but one which I believe is still valid today,” Samuels said.

“One would say it used to be easier to detect our children as we only had word of mouth in the direct environments where our children were raised. However, the size of the village has changed, right? It has changed,” she said.

Samuels said it is “family” that is one of the best solutions to combat the challenges with the nation’s youth.

“Families are the fundamental pillars of society and are tasked with socialising children into the model leaders who will eventually shape our society, but parents cannot do it alone, so we must extend the context of family to include us all as we all play a role in influencing the growth and betterment of our children,” she said.

Also, in keeping with the theme of National Child Month 2023, ‘Speak up! Speak out! Protect the Rights of Our Children’, she said that the rights of children such as basic human rights, rights to education, healthcare, social services, and freedom of movement are being covered.

She reiterated that protecting children’s rights requires a multifaceted approach, which involves raising awareness and advocating for policies that prioritise the well-being of children.

“But protection goes beyond just meeting basic needs. It means empowering our children to have a voice in decisions that affect their lives. It means listening to their concerns, respecting their opinions and involving [them] in the processes that shape their futures,” Samuels said.

“We must be advocates, allies, and champions for children everywhere,” she said.

Samuels noted that it was evident, with the advancements in technology and its availability to children, that it has become harder to detect either their New Age challenges or when they are doing wrong.

She noted that 2024 marks the 35th anniversary of the Geneva Convention on the Rights of the Child, which is the most universally accepted human rights instrument incorporating civil, political, economic, social, and cultural rights of children into one single document and the responsibility of adults towards children.

For National Child Month 2024, there are numerous national events and activities planned such as a church service on May 5 at the Saxthorpe Methodist Church, National Children’s Day on May 17, National Day of Prayer on May 29, and a Care Package Distribution Day on May 31.

ainsworth.morris@gleanerjm.com