CHILDREN’S RIGHTS
children; but also recognizes the mandatory responsibility of all persons to report incidents of children in need of care and protection by imposing ‘a duty on any person who knows or suspects that a child is, has been or is likely to be abused, neglected or in need of care and protection.’ to report it to the OCR. Importantly, note that there is a higher standard of proof for certain named professionals who work with children because they are deemed to have knowledge or suspicion that a child is in need of care and protection, based on their access to certain information for example teachers and doctors. The CCPA also identifies a range of offences: the maximum sentence for child neglect is three years and the more grievous the abuse the higher the sentence. The CCPA imposes sanctions such as a $1 million fine as well as a business closure order for the hiring of a child in a night-club and condemns child trafficking with a fine and/or imprisonment
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of up to 10 years. Despite the broad range of protection that the CCPA offers, there are plans to expand the scope of the Act. Firstly, as emphatically indicated by Prime Minister Portia Simpson-Miller, the government intends to create a new offence of parental neglect such that a parent ‘whose child is found in circumstances consistent with inadequate parental care and attention’ (which includes children found unsupervised on the streets or other public places late at night, or a child, found living with an adult where the arrangement exposes the child to the risk of sexual or other abuse) will be charged and prosecuted. Secondly, there are plans to increase reporting obligations by expanding the number of agencies to which reports of child abuse can be made. Moreover, the CCPA’s provisions are reinforced by the Sexual Offences Act (SOA), The Offences Against the Person Act (OAPA), The Trafficking in Persons (Prevention,
Suppression and Punishment) Act, The Child Pornography (Prevention) Act (CPPA) and The Cyber Crimes Act. The SOA, for example, provides penalties for the abduction, unlawful detention of a child for sexual purposes, sexual intercourse with a child under the age of 16, sexual grooming of a child, sexual touching or interfering with a child; and procuring a child to become a prostitute, either in or outside of Jamaica, or to become an inmate in a house of prostitution. It also criminalizes the act of incest with a maximum sentence of life imprisonment.
The OAPA assigns a maximum sentence of 3 years imprisonment for child abandonment or exposure of child under 2 years of age, whose life or health has been or likely to be permanently injured and punishes child stealing, kidnapping, aggravated assault on a child, concealing the birth of a child and infanticide. Additionally, Cabinet approved the Minister of Justice, Mark
Golding’s plan to ‘prescribe harsher penalties for persons who murder, rape or commit other serious violent offences against children and for these cases to be given priority treatment in the trial list, with respect to scheduling and disposal.’
We have also adopted the Child Pornography (Prevention) Act (CPPA) 2009 prohibiting the production, distribution, importation, exportation or possession of or profiting from child pornography, and employing or using children to produce pornographic material. Additionally, the Cyber Crimes Act (CCA) 2010 complements the CPPA by protecting children from cybercrimes such as sexting and textopornographie. Here, we reinforced the legislation with the ratification of United Nations (UN) Optional Protocol to the CRC on the Sale of Children, Child Prostitution and Child Pornography on 26 August 2011.
Our laws are not only geared towards combating sexual abuse
The Parliamentarian | 2015: Issue Two | 83
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