作者： admin

Investing in holistic, high-quality care for children is universally recognized as a foundational pillar of sustained social stability. Yet awareness alone has failed to resolve a growing crisis in Jamaica’s youth support system, where systemic gaps are leaving thousands of vulnerable children behind with consequences that ripple across the entire society.

The grim reality is that hundreds of children with unaddressed behavioural challenges are being pushed into inappropriate state care pathways every year, a problem that two top Jamaican officials have recently brought to national attention during parliamentary review proceedings. Junior Justice Minister Marisa Dalrymple Philibert and Children’s Advocate Diahann Gordon Harrison recently presented their findings to Parliament’s Joint Select Committee, which is currently conducting a review of the 2018 Child Diversion Act. Their testimony has pulled back the curtain on long-standing systemic failures that demand urgent national action.

According to the pair, children who have never committed any criminal offense, but struggle with behavioural issues, are increasingly being routed into the national child diversion program and placed in state-run children’s homes and correctional facilities. This practice not only overwhelms diversion programs designed for an entirely different population, it also directly violates the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, an international treaty Jamaica ratified decades ago.

Gordon Harrison clarified the core purpose of the child diversion system in her testimony, noting it was structured to support children who have already committed criminal offenses, connecting them with specialized care to prevent future reoffending. It was never intended to serve children who run away from home or are chronically truant from school, she emphasized.

The children’s advocate traced the root of the crisis to a long-unaddressed gap in Jamaica’s youth care infrastructure: the complete absence of dedicated therapeutic care centers. These facilities, mandated under the country’s Child Care and Protection Act, are supposed to provide specialized, targeted support for children with behavioural challenges, but they have never been fully established or resourced. Gordon Harrison stressed that these centers must be made operational, staffed with trained personnel, and equipped with adequate resources as an urgent policy priority.

Dalrymple Philibert, who also serves as the Member of Parliament for Trelawny Southern and is a former Speaker of Jamaica’s House of Representatives, offered full, unwavering backing for Gordon Harrison’s assessment. She confirmed that courts across the country are routinely sending these vulnerable children to general state children’s homes, which lack the training and resources to support children with complex behavioural needs. Speaking directly to Justice Minister Delroy Chuck, who chaired the committee meeting, Dalrymple Philibert drew on decades of personal experience to emphasize that this misplacement has plagued Jamaica’s child care system for generations. The centers mandated by law have never actually existed, she confirmed, and the status quo can no longer be ignored.

Tackling this long-standing gap is no simple task, particularly in the wake of Hurricane Melissa, which has stretched Jamaica’s public resources to breaking point. Building out a national network of therapeutic care centers will require significant financial and human capital, resources that are already in short supply for the government in the aftermath of the devastating storm.

Despite these fiscal challenges, the newspaper’s editorial argues that Jamaica cannot afford to set this issue aside as the country recovers. Investing in appropriate care for behaviourally challenged children is not just a moral obligation—it is a long-term investment in public safety. Over time, targeted early support will reduce the likelihood that these children turn to criminal or antisocial behavior later in life, ultimately reducing the massive public costs associated with crime control and the justice system. As Jamaica rebuilds after the storm, officials say protecting the country’s most vulnerable children must remain a core part of the nation’s vision for a more stable, prosperous future.

A fierce public debate over media and legal transparency in child sexual crime cases has erupted in Jamaica, sparked by a high-profile incest charge against a former ruling party politician, with advocates and media leaders clashing over conflicting priorities of victim justice and child protection. At the center of the controversy stands Joy Crawford, executive director of Eve for Life Jamaica — a non-profit dedicated to empowering vulnerable young mothers and survivors of sexual violence through mentorship, counseling, and policy advocacy. Crawford is demanding a fundamental shift in long-standing policy: once an individual accused of a sexual crime against a minor has been formally charged and arraigned in court, their identity should be released to the public.

Crawford argues that the current practice of withholding accused names, which is most often justified as a measure to protect child victims, in reality silences survivors who have already chosen to come forward. When a victim summons the courage to publicly name their abuser and demand accountability, she says, that act of bravery should not be muted by excessive editorial caution. Continuing to grant anonymity to charged offenders, Crawford contends, risks emboldening repeat offenders and eroding public confidence in Jamaica’s justice system. She dismisses the claim that anonymity protects victims as a misplaced narrative, arguing that the policy instead protects societal discomfort, powerful connections, and outdated moral sensibilities rather than the survivors themselves. “When a victim works up the mental fortitude to come forward, name their attacker, and pursue legal action, we should not push them back into silence,” Crawford told the Jamaica Observer. “Victims have already counted the cost of speaking out. The discomfort with naming names is ours, not theirs.” Crawford also notes that anonymity is largely performative: in small local communities, word of an accused’s identity often spreads through informal channels anyway, leaving no real meaningful protection for victims while denying them the open justice they seek.

The debate was triggered by a recent case involving a former Member of Parliament affiliated with the People’s National Party, who stands charged with raping a 13-year-old female relative. According to police reports, the former MP picked up the minor under the pretense of running errands in January 2024, before taking her back to his home and sexually assaulting her. The victim filed an official report with law enforcement, leading to the former MP’s arrest and charge. In line with standard practice, the accused’s name has been withheld to avoid indirectly identifying the underage survivor.

Crawford’s call for transparency has drawn sharp pushback from Jamaica’s leading media and child protection organizations, who warn that abandoning anonymity rules would put child survivors at grave risk of further harm. Dashan Hendricks, president of the Press Association of Jamaica (PAJ), emphasized that media caution in these cases is never intended to protect offenders — it is a deliberate choice to prioritize the safety and privacy of child victims. In cases of incest or intra-family abuse, Hendricks explained, releasing the accused’s name almost always makes it simple for community members, neighbors, and classmates to deduce the victim’s identity, given the close family relationship between attacker and survivor. This exposure can subject child survivors to severe stigma, social shaming, and repeated trauma, compounding the harm they have already endured.

Hendricks pointed out that this policy is not just an ethical choice for media outlets — it is a legal requirement under Jamaica’s Child Care and Protection Act. Sections 44 and 45 of the Act explicitly ban any reporting that reveals identifying details of a child involved in legal proceedings for sexual abuse, mandating that the best interest of the child must always be the paramount consideration. “Responsible journalism starts with compliance with child protection law,” Hendricks told the Sunday Observer. “If naming the accused creates a meaningful risk of identifying the child, media are right to withhold the name. Justice for a child cannot come at the cost of further harm.”

Hendricks’ stance is backed by local and international child protection groups. The Fi We Children Foundation, a Jamaican youth empowerment organization, released a statement last week affirming that public demand for accountability must never override a child’s right to safety and dignity. International child protection standards and UNICEF guidelines, the group noted, strictly require that the identity of child abuse victims be protected at all times, even when that means withholding details that would lead to an offender’s identification. UNICEF’s framework mandates that journalists alter names, obscure visual identifiers, and omit any details that could lead to the recognition of a child victim, to prevent stigma, retraumatization, and ongoing risk to the survivor.

While the number of officially reported incest cases in Jamaica has declined steadily over the past five years — dropping from 33 reports in 2019 to just eight as of mid-November 2024, according to Jamaica Constabulary Force data — researchers warn that this trend may not reflect a real drop in incidents. Official data from previous years recorded 30 cases in 2016, 29 in 2017, and 23 in 2018, but analysts have long noted that underreporting of sexual and incestuous abuse is widespread in Jamaica, due to stigma, family pressure, and lack of trust in official systems. The current debate has thrown a spotlight on the ongoing tension between survivor autonomy and child protection frameworks in the country, as stakeholders grapple with how to balance accountability for offenders with safety for the children who survive these crimes.

More than four decades ago, a seven-year-old Kevin Campbell sat quietly among veteran craftsmen in the Frazer’s Content neighbourhood of Spanish Town, St Catherine, Jamaica, watching intently as they shaped handcrafted Dutch pots and coal stoves by hand. Now 52, Campbell has turned this childhood fascination into a thriving small business, producing more than 100 handcrafted aluminium pots per week — and he is on a mission to recruit a new generation to save the fading Jamaican tradition before it disappears entirely.

Campbell recalls that metal pot and cookware crafting was once a booming trade that supported dozens of households across his community. But as the elder artisans who held the knowledge passed away or migrated abroad, the craft declined sharply. Today, only four people in the entire community still practice the traditional skill, and dwindling young interest has left Campbell deeply concerned about its future.

“From the start, Campbell learned the craft from local artisans Kenroy Hylton and a craftsman known only as Culture, who brought the trade — a branch of a tradition originating in Waterhouse, St Andrew. The early exposure stuck with Campbell through decades of work. While many artisans abandoned the trade over the years due to its demanding nature, Campbell’s lifelong passion has kept him committed to the craft. Two years ago, he branched out to launch his own independent business, producing custom-made pieces ranging from small teapots to large soup pots, frying pans and traditional coal stoves in a full range of sizes.

His durable handcrafted products are sold both wholesale and retail to local restaurants and households across St Catherine’s Linstead, as well as Mandeville and Christiana in Manchester, with prices ranging from JMD $1,700 to $20,000 depending on size, type and purchase volume.

The craft is intensely labour-intensive, with each piece taking two to three full days to complete. Campbell crafts all his pots exclusively from aluminium for a smooth, polished finish. The traditional process starts with shaping moulds for both the pot and its lid from topsoil, followed by pouring molten aluminium into the dried mould. Once the metal sets, the raw pot is removed and carefully polished by hand.

Campbell points to his first ever completed pot — a four-pound rice pot he made when he was 10 years old — as proof of his products’ longevity. His family still uses the pot regularly to this day. “It came out wonderful — nice, clean, and pretty. I felt so much joy when I saw that I had made something that turned out perfectly. There’s no feeling like that,” he told reporters, smiling as he held the well-worn piece.

While demand for his traditional cookware has fluctuated over the decades, the craft has been a reliable livelihood that allowed Campbell to support his family and put all four of his children through high school. Though his children have pursued their own independent career paths, they all pitch in to help with the business side of the operation, handling marketing, transportation and sales. His daughter Lamoya has taken on day-to-day operational management, coordinating orders and transactions across the region.

For Campbell, no other line of work can compare to the satisfaction of pot-making. He jokes he would live a million years if it meant he could keep crafting his wares. But he also knows he cannot carry the tradition on his own forever, which is why he is actively inviting young Jamaicans — even college students just curious about the process — to learn the craft from him for free. His contact information is posted on social media (876-435-4960 and 876-797-8623), and he says he is ready and willing to teach anyone who wants to learn.

Campbell follows the example set by the artisans who taught him, who never closed the door to him when he was a curious child. “They could have hidden the knowledge from me, but they didn’t. They gave me the willingness to pass it on by showing me kindness when I wanted to learn,” he explained. “Even if someone just wants to learn the process and doesn’t want to build a whole business out of it, I’m still happy to teach them. Sharing this craft brings me joy.”