Save Jamaica's children

Joelle Buckley GUEST COLUMNIST

On Sunday, May 26, I sat through a beautiful church service in observance of Child Month where the talents of children and adolescents were paraded on stage as they sang, read scriptures, drummed, and prayed with pomp, style, energy and confidence.

My heart was warmed and I left the service singing over and over the chorus to one of their songs: 'Children's care and protection is your mission, is your mission. Children's care and protection is your mission, is your mission.'

Then I went home to face the music: The front page of The Sunday Gleaner told the tale of a young girl who was obviously hurting for so long and no one did anything to help.

As a society with a retributive justice system, all we offer victims is more grief, no healing. And because our justice system is primarily retributive, there is little or no restoration or rehabilitation, so our children will always be imprisoned for showing the maladaptive symptoms they tend to display in an attempt to cry out for help.

After only briefly scanning the front page of the newspaper, I realised that the song I heard earlier in the church service was really only a song, 'Children's care and protection was not our mission.'

For at least 10 years, it has been reported in the news media, as well as by various mental-health professionals, that seriously destructive things were happening in numerous public facilities that were given the assignment of rescuing our children from family members that meant them no good, or from dangerous communities.

But in these places, mandated to rescue, they are also being harmed, and official after official has turned a blind eye.

We proudly talk about Jamaicans being people who are determined, people who can 'tun dem hand an mek fashion'. But it seems such qualities are only inside the average Jamaican, the Jamaican who lives hand to mouth and has to pinch pennies.

I cannot imagine that among successive political leaders and within the educated upper and middle classes we are completely incapable of rescuing our children. We can all begin to close shop now and cease to exist as a nation if we can find no way to save hurting children.

Sexual abuse of children is too prevalent in Jamaica and we have failed to recognise the impact of such harm on children. We are so quick to call them out when they do wrong that we completely miss it when their behaviours scream at us to help them.

Cases like the Vanessa Wint suicide shout out 'Children's care and protection is Not our mission.'

VOLUNTEER SYSTEM NEEDED

Will money and the usual 'lack of resources' refrain really be the reason why, 10 years from now, we will have a society where sex offenders become the dominant category of inmates? This is sometimes the long-term outcome of a person who has been sexually abused.

Are we really okay with the idea of having an increase in sexual disorders among our people (especially females) because too many would have experienced sexual abuse by then? Is our society full of determined, creative, innovative Jamaicans ready to sit back and hang our hands helplessly with this issue? Are volunteer programmes really that hard to implement?

I can confidently say that none of the members of my cohort who studied clinical psychology at the University of the West Indies, Mona, and none of those who I have met since who studied counselling psychology at the Caribbean Graduate School of Theology, nor any of those who have studied Social Work or Guidance and Counselling at the Jamaica Theological Seminary, would be unwilling to become volunteers with the juvenile correctional facilities or the Child Development Agency.

Consistently, I question whether our political leaders realise how urgent an issue this has become. Even if we are able to gather all the volunteers we can to host, for a period of three or six months, group therapy and individual therapy for physically and sexually abused children, we will still have thousands more to deal with.

The reality is that the places of safety are still operating without thorough supervision and many without properly trained personnel. In addition, our correctional facilities still have few mental-health professionals accessible to them, and those who exist are sometimes only 'on call' for emergencies.

Thus, emotional and psychological rehabilitation of the delinquent is not ongoing and not at the forefront of the treatment process for incarcerated children. This addresses only those in the hands of the State. Can we even begin to imagine the secret situation in so many homes? Or the type of 'love' being meted out by so many family friends and relatives who have gained the trust of parents, children and adolescents only to abuse it?

FREE THE NATION

I shudder at the thought and pray that, as we mature as a nation, many children will feel free to come forward and cry for help without hesitation, and with the support of their parents and guardians who will believe them. I also pray that many mothers will become wiser about who they leave their children with and for how long.

If we do not rescue our children today, Jamaica has no tomorrow. Despite the International Monetary Fund agreement and all the economic changes we make, our country will still crumble, because people are a nation's greatest resource.

Sexual abuse impacts a person on many levels for the rest of their life. It has the ability to steal the magic of trust in other human beings from a child. When that is betrayed from so early, a child's resilience is put to the test for the remainder of their life.

In the face of a parent or guardian's disbelief in a child's report of abuse, and in the face of the community's scorn, a child is forced to keep a secret that he or she wants desperately to share with the world to help get rid of the hurt.

Already, as a nation, we are not very empathetic towards our children. In many settings, children are still only to be seen and not heard. What then is a child left to do but act out? Only such behaviours are noticed and treated, so why not portray them?

It is also very popular in our nation to piously adhere to the scripture that says that we should not 'spare the rod and spoil the child', but all other child-related scripture and principles tend to be abandoned. What about the following? "Children's children are the crown of old men, and the glory of children is their fathers" (Proverbs 17:6); or "a reproof enters deeper into a man of understanding than a hundred lashes into a fool" (Proverbs 17:10).

I pray that one day Jamaicans will be sufficiently outraged at child sexual abuse to ensure that 'Children's care and protection is our mission.'

Joelle Buckley is an associate clinical psychologist attached to the Jamaica Theological Seminary, Family Life Ministries, and the Caribbean Graduate School of Theology's counselling centre. Email feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com.