Child care director chides wanting reportage on children’s issue

Jan 24, 2018 News

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The media, like the rest of the society, has a crucial role to help protect the rights of children. In so doing, it is always imperative that deliberate efforts
are made to ensure that the vulnerability of children is not amplified.
This is the opinion of Director of the Childcare and Protection Agency [CPA], Ms. Ann Greene, as she condemned a recent article published by this newspaper that has the potential of increasing a child’s vulnerability.
The article in question ‘Cell phone addiction sparks teen’s runaway,’ is one of a missing child. In the said article, family members shared extensively of the circumstances they believed led to the child’s disappearance. The child was yesterday located and reunited with her family.
But according to Greene, the role of a responsible media entity, in such a case, should in fact be to merely report of the missing status of the child and refer the family to the CPA to share any further details.
Such a case, according to Greene, is suitable for a family conferencing approach, which is a tactic designed to address issues that affect children. CPA is aiming to host a total of 65 such conferences this year, Greene informed.
As she continued her deliberation on the way issues involving vulnerable children are reported on, Greene said, “if it is not done in a responsible way, this can expose a child to further vulnerability…when information about what is perceived to cause the child to be missing is publicised it can cause further harm.”
“Even if the family comes in desperation, the media has a responsibility to deal with these issues in a manner in keeping with the rights of a child …children must always be portrayed in a positive light,” cautioned Greene.
As such, the CPA Director emphasised the importance of media practitioners having a clear understanding of the dos and don’ts when reporting on issues pertaining to children.
“I am totally disgusted with the media and how they handle issues with children in the media sometimes…in spite of all the training that is done with media practitioners. A child should not even be portrayed without clothes in the media,” warned Greene.
According to Greene, it is her hope that the media could be part of the solution rather than the problem, when it comes to the protection of children.
“The media has a role to help stop abuse of children,” said Greene, as she underscored that irresponsible reporting could “damage a child for life; sharing all the details about what occurred is not helping at all when it comes to protecting our children”.

Even as Greene recounted reports carried by multiple media entities which failed to adhere to responsible reporting, she asserted, “I have to make tough decisions sometimes to protect children and the decisions I make, at times, do not always find favour with the adults in the children’s lives…”
As such, she noted that “we [CPA] are the ones to deal with the drama, not the media. When a child runs away from home and is found we have to find out why he or she ran away in the first place and we work with the family; we have to hear both sides of the story.”
Greene also weighed in on the wandering charge which has been meted out to some children over the years.
The charge is one that is slated to be eliminated once the Juvenile Justice Bill becomes a reality. A number of child rights organisations and activists have called for the swift abolition of the charge, since it is believed to cause some youths, who act out because of abuse, to be further punished.
But according to Greene, while it is true that a number of youths who have been charged with wandering are victims of abuse, there are yet some who are predisposed to a delinquent lifestyle.
“They might reject the order of the home, they might reject certain things…some may even be habitual street walkers….they are predisposed to this and they want to be on the streets, and there is no way we can leave a child on the streets, so we have got to get some place that we can put that child as we try to find out what is really happening,” said Greene.
In light of this, she said that the charge of wandering has been helping CPA to save some children until an alternative measure is put in place.
“When they are held for wandering it means that the Probation Officers and Social Workers have an opportunity to find out why the child is running away…we may have to get the child to a confined place to do this,” Greene reiterated.
She pointed out that until other measures are in place, “Wandering in some cases is the only charge to help us deal with children on the streets who are predisposed to the lifestyle…if we leave them out there, the situation would only get worse.”

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