Children on the run
Published:Monday | March 28, 2011 | 12:00 AM
More than 750 recorded cases of wards of the state running away from places of safety in the last three years
Tyrone Reid, Staff Reporter
Hundreds of wards of the state have been running away from children's homes and places of safety across Jamaica.
Some of them, including several deemed uncontrollable by the courts, are still on the lam.
Absconding is an age-old problem for which the local authorities have found no solution. Data provided by the Child Development Agency (CDA) show that between April 2007 and March 2010, some 754 incidents were recorded.
"Absconding is one of those practices you try to prevent but it is very hard to eliminate," said Rashida St. Juste, public relations and communication manager at the CDA.
"It is a problem that we have constantly tried to come up with new programmes (to solve)," she added.
The CDA said the number of absconding children could be fewer than the total number of incidents recorded because some minors are serial absconders.
"Please note that these figures do not represent the number of children who have absconded over the period, but rather the number of incidents. It is important for the distinction to be made because there are repeat offenders, that is, children who have run away several times," St. Juste said.
While the CDA provided the number of cases, it could not say how many wards absconded during the period under review. St. Juste said the 754 cases were "mined from critical incident reports, as well as routine monitoring reports".
Critical incident
Absconding, she said, is treated as a critical incident when the child is a repeat offender or where two or more children abscond from the facility at the same time.
St. Juste argued that many of absconders have deep psychological issues.
"In social work, there are children who are recognised as 'runners'. For some children, being in an institutional setting leads to feelings of confinement and lack of freedom, particularly for those who were used to being on the streets and those who have a history of running away from home," she said.
"Some children yearn to be reunited with family members and friends whom they have left behind in their communities. There are girls, for example, who come into care with problems such as risky sexual behaviour, who will do anything to go back to that life," St. Juste added.
There are approximately 2,500 wards in residential childcare facilities, both privately owned and state-run accommodations in Jamaica. Of that number, 800 are housed in the various places of safety and the remainder live in children's homes.
Despite the incidents of absconding, the CDA is challenged by the fact that children cannot be locked down. Both the Child Care and Protection Act and the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child protect the freedom of children.
"You will observe, on your visits to facilities, that some have in place sturdy perimeter fences and walls, while others are either in a state of disrepair or have none in place. Broken/dilapidated fences have been fixed repeatedly, particularly in those locations that house girls, only for them to be destroyed by young men in surrounding communities, or the girls themselves. An example of this is Homestead," said St. Juste.
She said the CDA has been advised against the erection of high walls or high fencing for residential childcare facilities