By Trudy Simpson, Staff ReporterTHERE IS still a long way to go to ensure the rights and participation in society of Jamaican young people, especially disabled youth and those in Jamaica's inner-city communities and children's homes.
Researchers and officials who met on Wednesday at Jamaica Pegasus Hotel, New Kingston, to discuss adolescent development and participation rights, agreed that despite gains in guaranteeing children's rights and participation, this is one area that needs more work.
Dr. Leith Dunn who presented a paper on 'Promoting Participation in Jamaica', said there needed to be a national policy and endorsement on adolescent participation, as well as special programmes for children in inner cities and children's homes. These must recognise "that because of the particular circumstances there are challenges with implementation in those situations", she said.
Also, the meeting discussed the release of several findings and recommendations from recent consultations on and presentation of five research papers looking at issues concerning the age group 10 to 19 years.
The research, commissioned by the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) and the United Nations Population Fund, began two years ago in parishes including St. James, Trelawny and Kingston and St. Andrew and culminated recently in consultations between policymakers and local youth advocates.
It was funded by the United Nations Fund for Participation and has been compiled in an adult, as well as a teenage, version of a written report.
"Children with disabilities also have the possibility to become involved in decision-making, depending on their level of ability. In children's homes, which are like an institution where they have rules, we need to look at how we can make them more participation friendly," Dr. Dunn said.
About 80 per cent of 30 organisations interviewed in the "participation" study said they guaranteed youth participation as part of their mission statement and policy, but Dr. Dunn said that researchers found that these organisations did speak explicitly to adolescent support and participation.
She said that youth were often excluded from planning activities but were manipulated, used as decorations and tokens and as mouthpieces for adults who shaped their words and actions.
At the meeting researchers called for changes in attitudes to youth and to changes in the interpretation and definitions of terms such as "age" in several laws, educating adults on the rights of the child, including youth, as advocates on committees, allowing youth to exercise initiative and setting up strong links between parents and communities, so that the right of the child to participate could be brought to communities and homes.
Also, they stressed the need of adults to include youth in decision-making and to respect the group's opinions.
Using quantitative as well as qualitative methods, reseachers discovered that a significant portion of youth still believe sexual myths, are initiated into early sexual activity by family members and older men and women and are being harassed by drug dealers who force many to become drug mules.
Still more are handled violently both verbally and physically in key influential arenas, such as the home and school, by care-givers who beat and verbally abuse them, teachers who fight them and schoolyard bullies and "bad men."
Lincoln Williams, in his presentation on 'Adolescence and Violence in Jamaica', explained what youth see as the triggers of violence, namely verbal abuse, revenge and retaliation, gaining stripes, teacher-pupil conflict and exposure to violence. Several were also prone to fighting, when they or their mothers were insulted, when they were attacked, or to gain peace by being more violent than a bully. However, many youth were determined to stay out of violence.
A study on 'Factors which shape the initiation of early sexual activity among adolescents', showed that some youngsters believe that it is all right to exchange sex for financial or material gain including in the case of boys, to ensure job promotion.
The other papers presented were, 'The legal and policy environment for adolescent development' and 'The Living Environment and Social Support for Adolescents in Jamaica' which showed that youth lived with mothers mostly or in extended families and saw as role models, businessmen like Gordon "Butch" Stewart instead of dancehall deejays.
