CHILD PROTECTION
The protection of Jamaican children from violence, abuse and exploitation in all its forms is one of the biggest challenges facing the nation. The high rate of crime and violence plaguing the Jamaican society has had a devastating impact on children. Over the past five years, more than 300 children, mostly boys, have been murdered. Sexual crimes against children are rampant, with girls primarily the victims. In 2006, children and adolescents made up an alarming 78 per cent of all the sexual assault/rape cases admitted to public hospitals. In the same year, girls under 16 accounted for 32 per cent of all sexual assaults in Jamaica. Although legislation has banned corporal punishment throughout early childhood and residential care institutions, it remains the dominant form of discipline in homes, as well as in primary and secondary schools. According to the 2005 Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey, 87 per cent of children aged 2-14 are subjected to at least one form of psychological or physical punishment. Children regularly have their right to education and leisure activities disrupted because of violence in their communities and school closures due to civil disturbances; and boys continue to underachieve, making them more vulnerable to exploitation, violence and participation in gang activities. As of March 2007, 5,835 children were living in residential care. Over 270 children live in correctional institutions. Many children who live in institutional care are growing up without family care, love and support and are often more vulnerable to abuse. Programme Objectives The overall programme’s objective is to strengthen national and parish capacities to further reduce children’s vulnerability to abuse, violence and any other form of exploitation and discrimination. In particular it will aim to improve legal provision and enforcement mechanisms, set up a national baseline on violence against children, including gender-based violence, and strengthen social safety nets through improved coordination, monitoring, referral of children in need of protection, and improved access to quality care.The Child Protection Programme will support the implementation of the National Plan of Actions for an Integrated Response to Children and Violence and the National Plan of Action on Child Justice. It will foster an environment that protects children from violence, abuse and exploitation; promotes diversion programmes and community/family based rehabilitation and reintegration of children in conflict with the law and provides home/family-based care for children without familial care. Programme Strategies With a three-tier level of focus, the programme will support legislative revisions, and comprehensive community-based interventions, strengthen the delivery and access of services and ensure comprehensive monitoring and evaluation mechanisms. Interventions will be age-appropriate and gender-sensitive. The programme will include the participation of adolescents in mediation and violence-mitigation, and will encourage the participation of adolescents in their communities’ lives.Through public awareness campaigns, attitudes in favour of peaceful conflict resolution and positive disciplining of children will be promoted. UNICEF will continuously advocate zero tolerance to violence against children, including the ending of corporal punishment in primary and secondary schools. The support will continue to build the capacity of policy and decision makers as well as professionals to provide user-friendly and quality services to children and their caregivers. The programme will benefit from and contribute to UNICEF support to child protection within the CARICOM framework, as well as other Caribbean initiatives promoting youth participation. Projects 1. Enabling Policy and Programming EnvironmentThis project aims to improve legal and policy provision and enforcement mechanisms, with a special focus on the development of Victims Charter, the revision of the Education Regulations Act 1980, juvenile justice reform and the development of standards and protocols for the implementation of the Child Care and Protection Act passed in 2004. The project will ensure national norms and standards for child protection services are in place. This project will further improve the knowledge, technical capacities, professional competences and service delivery standards of the CDA professionals, professionals working in the justice and security sectors, and other non-government stakeholders to better protect the rights of children. This will be done through training, supply assistance and technical assistance. 2. Improving Access to and Quality of Services This project will complement legislative revision, reform, policy and standards development by operationalising the norms and standards for child protection by strengthening the capacities of children, families and community duty bearers to access essential social services and reintegration and rehabilitative mechanisms. It is expected that this project, in conjunction with the other two projects, will result in:
3. Monitoring and Evaluation Project This project will ensure provision of technical assistance and the development of monitoring and evaluation mechanisms, including improved data collection, processing and dissemination of data to inform advocacy, policy, social mobilization efforts, to establish appropriate policy and legislative measures and to enable effective service delivery.
UNICEF's GLOBAL CHILD PROTECTION STRATEGY Read our global Child Protection Strategy, which defines UNICEF's contribution to national and international efforts to fulfill children's rights to protection and to achieve the Millennium Development Goals. [PDF] (PDF documents require Acrobat Reader to view.) CHILDREN AND VIOLENCE: FACTS AND FIGURES UNICEF Jamaica fact sheet on the impact of violence on children [PDF] (PDF documents require Acrobat Reader to view.) |
