Child sexual predators could get life imprisonment

Junior Youth Minister Robert Morgan last Thursday served notice that the Government has started work on legislation to allow for a maximum penalty of life imprisonment for adults who engage in predatory sexual assault against a vulnerable victim, such as a child under the age of 12 or someone with a mental disorder.

Describing child abuse one of the biggest threats to Jamaicans today, the state minister in the Ministry of Education, Youth and Information said that it was hard for him to accept that many Jamaicans do not love children.

“The reality is that many Jamaicans do not see children in the way that they should. They do not see them as human beings having independent thoughts and feelings, but see them as receptacles of their own pleasure or victims of their frustration and anger,” he told the Spotlight Initiative’s Roundtable Red Alert: Arresting the Child Sexual Abuse Emergency.

He said that the Government was committed to enacting tougher laws and pursue other initiatives to protect the nation’s children.

Eve For Life Executive Director Joy Crawford made a case for child survivors of rape and incest to have the option of safe and legal abortions.

“It’s very difficult for a 14- [or] 15-year-old to stare into the eyes of a child for which her father – her biological father – is the father. Survivors are saying, how do I tell my child that their father is their grandfather? How do I grow my child and love this child the way that is required?” she said in an address.

She urged the relevant response agencies to provide age-appropriate care and protection for child survivors differentiated from adult victims of sexual abuse, noting that while the level of vulnerability for children and adolescents was much higher, the planning, interventions and responses do not recognise this.

“They are not adults. We need to understand that the child lacks capacity,” she emphasised and called for survivors to have access to long-term psychological support because of the years of trauma suffered by rape victims.

The event was sponsored by the European Union-United Nations’ Spotlight Initiative (SI) and legal consultant Tania Chambers used the occasion to call for an expansion in the list of prescribed persons legally obligated to report child abuse, an increase in minimum penalties for predators, and therapeutic interventions to treat both victims and perpetrators.

A prescribed person is someone who by virtue of employment or occupation has a responsibility to discharge a duty of care towards a child. In law, they are held to a higher standard of accountability than other adults.

Chambers said that expanding the list of prescribed persons would require an amendment to the Child Care and Protection Act, which currently lists only health, education and childcare authorities as prescribed persons. She proposed that coaches as well as youth and church leaders also be included among the prescribed persons.

The Red Alert Roundtable is the second in a series of advocacy webinars tailored to explore legislative and policy issues, gaps and solutions addressing violence against women and girls. The final roundtable will be convened on Domestic Violence and Sexual Violence Against Women on November 25, as part of the 16 Days of Activism Against Gender-Based Violence.

christopher.serju@gleanerjm.com