We Have to Face it to Erase it

Excerpt from the Jamaica Observer column published Monday, May 03, 2021

By Jean Lowrie-Chin

Jenny Jones, senior researcher at the Violence Prevention Alliance (VPA), last week shared shocking findings on the impact of the novel coronavirus pandemic on lower-income communities. She was speaking at a web forum presented by the Caribbean Policy Research Institute (CaPRI) who, with the VPA, had gathered the information primarily from poor communities and nine hospitals serving these communities. She noted that in households with children there is “huge mental stress” related to being home from school with no school lunch or breakfast, insufficient devices, and sometimes no Internet access.

The most distressing part of Jones’ presentation was the discovery “of increased sexual abuse particularly by stepfathers at home while mothers are gone out to hustle”. She said the police have “intelligence that leads them to believe that some idle schoolboys, with more time to watch pornography, experiment on younger children”.

I am sorry to write this because it is sickening: “The May Pen Hospital saw a horrific increase in rapes of children between the ages of two to 10,” she disclosed. “For a whole year the SMO (senior medical officer) said he would normally see one, or at most two, of this age group. Now he saw nine in one month and some of these he said were vicious.”

Jones refers to “unexpected findings — the widespread acceptance of transactional sex in younger girls… This is under-age girls we are talking about — 12, 13, 14, 15 years old, some not even at a grade 6 in primary school”.

Disturbingly, she notes, “Many in the community see nothing wrong with this. They see this as helping poor families. There is no concept of the fact that a 12- or 13- or 15-year-old child is not only legally not capable of consent, but also among the majority of the community there is no awareness of the emotional and psychological damage of early sexualisation.”

Interestingly, intimate partner violence has not increased, and interviewees shared that, with the curfew situation, men were afraid that if their partner left them they would have no company. I would add, they would have no one to wait on them, hand and foot.

“We need more social workers going into our communities… life in volatile communities is very harsh and stressful. Social workers can give a listening ear, they can counsel, they can point out other options, they can lead people to other support agencies,” suggested Jones.

She wants to see support units in hospitals to which child abuse cases can be referred immediately. In this emergency, the Child Protection and Family Services Agency (CPFSA) may need additional staffing. We have to squarely face these issues and show that we are addressing them with urgency.