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Public Defender urges schools to find smarter ways to handle grooming breaches

Published:Wednesday | December 7, 2022 | 6:08 PM
Reid Cameron: This stock response does not comport with the Convention on the Rights of the Child, to which Jamaica is a signatory.” - Contributed photo.

Public Defender Carolyn Reid Cameron is expressing concern over recent reports of students being barred by schools as a response to alleged breaches of grooming codes.

The most recent incident involved a male student at a St Catherine-based high school who was allegedly denied entry to school because of a hairstyle.

“The OPD is urging school principals and administrators to desist from this practise of banishing students from school as the first response to alleged infractions of grooming policies,” said Reid Cameron in a statement today.

“Surely the collective intellect of academic and administrative staff should capacitate them to conceive of smarter ways of handling such situations,” she added.

She said that it has not escaped her office that, in cases involving allegations related to grooming in schools, the initial response of institutions is almost always the turning away of the student.

“This response has become commonplace in the primary and secondary educational institutions. This stock response does not comport with the Convention on the Rights of the Child, to which Jamaica is a signatory.”

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