CDA wants law to offer more protection for street children

Jodi-Ann Gilpin, Gleaner Writer

The Child Development Agency (CDA), along with several stakeholders, is moving to make changes to the Child Care and Protection Act (CCPA) to include how street children are treated.

Legal consultant working on the project, Tania Chambers, said a lot needs to be done in enforcing the rights of children.

Chambers was speaking with The Gleaner following the National Consultation on Proposed Policy Amendments to the CCPA and the CCPA Children's Home Regulations yesterday.

"The act itself presents two separate sections: one which identifies a child as homeless, wandering on the streets and in need of care and protection, and another section that makes it an offence to have a child soliciting and begging. So we do have something in terms of a framework in place. What we don't have is an institutional framework that makes the removal of these children mandatory," she said.

"If a person sees a child in a destitute situation on the street, a framework is there … to offer assistance at their own discretion. But what we are attempting to do with this new policy is to implement an institutional requirement for automatic action, so that it becomes more systematic for responsible entities to remove children and following the removal, there will be some developmental and educational plans to rehabilitate them," Chambers declared.

Rosalee Gage-Grey, acting chief executive officer at the CDA, said several shortfalls needs to be addressed.

"There have been some glaring gaps, one which, in some sense, silences us as an agency … ," said Gage-Grey.